Massive drop in crime, Ministers claim

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Assaults have been reduced by almost 20% Territory wide and 32% in Alice Springs by “tough new alcohol policies including Alcohol Protection Orders and intensive Temporary Beat Locations” outside bottle shops, claim Chief Minister Adam Giles and Minister for Justice John Elferink in a joint media release.
 
“The turn-around in figures began in January, shortly after the introduction of Alcohol Protection Orders and the beginning of intensive Police operations outside bottle shops in Territory towns,” says the release.
 
“The initiatives are also cutting alcohol consumption. Almost 1300 people are now on Alcohol Protection Orders, banning them from buying, consuming or possessing alcohol or attending licensed premises.
 
“The Temporary Beat Locations are aimed at identifying people likely to buy alcohol for consumption in restricted areas.
 
“During a recent targeted operation in Alice Springs called Operation Leyland, assaults fell by 54% compared to the same period last year.  That’s half as many victims of assault as last year and is surely saving many women from being victims of domestic and sexual assault,” says the release.
 
“Alcohol-related hospital admissions also plummeted while the operation was in force between the end of February and the beginning of April.
 
“Territory-wide, house break-ins have dropped by 32%, commercial break-ins are down 19%, motor vehicle theft and related offences are down 10% and property damage has been cut by 14%.
 
“Property crime is down a staggering 30% in Alice Springs and 16% in Darwin.
 
“These figures are a credit to Police who have been working hard to target recidivist property offenders using the tools we’ve placed at their disposal.
 
“These tools include high visibility Police patrols, an expanded network of CCTV cameras, use of sniffer detection dogs and advances in fingerprint technology.”

4 COMMENTS

  1. This is fabulous news for the Alice and the Giles Government, who along with our hard working police force deserve our congratulations on the effort so far.
    Its a great confidence boosting turnaround. However at the risk of being a bit of a wet blanket there’s still along way to go!
    Don’t be fooled by your early success into believing you can back off a little, you must not give an inch!
    Only an iron hard, persistent action will bring the necessary changes to peoples behaviour.
    Unfortunately just of late there’s been a few signs of a return to the old, on again, off again, syndrome!
    We cannot allow any backslide it would be disastrous for an economy just beginning to show signs of recovery!

  2. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has just released a global status report on alcohol and health. Among its findings are: 3.3 million deaths in 2012 were due to harmful use of alcohol.
    Data on the alcohol consumption of Australians from 2010 showed that drinking affected males much more than women (although the latter is on the rise).
    It showed that about 11 per cent of the Australian population aged 15 years and older were heavy drinkers, with males consuming just under 20 litres of alcohol each on average, more than twice the amount of women, who drank 9 litres each on average.
    Disorders relating to alcohol use also affected more than double the amount of men than women, with 5% of men affected compared to just over 2% of women.
    On average every person in the world aged 15 years or older drinks 6.2 litres of pure alcohol per year. But as less than half the population (38.3%) actually drinks alcohol, this means that those who do drink consume on average 17 litres of pure alcohol annually.
    The report highlights the need for action by countries including: National leadership to develop policies to reduce harmful use of alcohol; National awareness-raising activities; Health services to deliver prevention and treatment services, in particular increasing prevention, treatment and care for patients and their families, and supporting initiatives for screening and brief interventions, e.g., FASD.
    The NT government initiatives described above mostly target the Indigenous population, but we all need to be reminded of the issues raised by the WHO and the cost of present government policies.

  3. According to my Face Book site, break and enters are still very prevalent, with most being under-age teens who have a record of 10-15 break-ins a week!
    The revolving door from police, to court, to bail isn’t stopping them. Not the fault of the police.
    They’re sick to death of doing all the paperwork associated with nabbing them, only to be doing the same thing the next day for the same culprits. This is where we need to concentrate our efforts on.

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