It’s baffling that police have to continually remind residents across the Maitland area to lock their vehicles before leaving them unattended.
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Central Hunter crime manager Detective Inspector Mitch Dubojski has renewed calls for people to be vigilant about vehicle security, in light of the latest Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research data that was released last week.
The figures showed that thefts from motor vehicles in the Maitland council area jumped by about 18 per cent in the 2015/16 financial year, compared with the previous 12 months.
In Cessnock, which makes up the other part of Central Hunter local area command, there was a 10 per cent jump.
Inspector Dubosjki says many of these thefts tended to occur where vehicles were either left unlocked and unattended or where valuable items like smart phones, tablets or wallets were left in a visible position inside.
It may seem to obvious to say, but it appears the message isn’t getting through: it takes only a few seconds to check your vehicle is secure.
It may prove to be the difference between having your belongings undisturbed or becoming a victim of crime.
But the inspector made a more crucial point when Fairfax Media asked him about the data recently.
He said the increase in preventable crime, like thefts from unlocked vehicles, had become a growing problem for police in Maitland in the past year.
Inspector Dubosjki said it was needlessly soaking up vital resources.
“Steal from motor vehicles outweighs the whole lot [of crime categories in Maitland] in the last six to 12 months,” he said.
“There is most definitely an impact.”
In a time when police have the scourge of domestic violence and the increasing prevalence of the drug ice to deal with, the least we could do as a community is make sure we aren’t making their jobs harder.
Simple responsibility isn’t too much for police to ask.
Every one of the 834 thefts from vehicles in Maitland in the past financial year took time out of an investigating officer’s day to record details of the report, follow up and complete the necessary paper work.
Each minute used to respond to a theft from an unlocked vehicle could be far more constructively spent addressing the more serious criminal problems in this city.