O’DONNELL Street had commanded a huge chunk of police attention for years, and that would not change without a major societal shift whereby parents took greater responsibility for the actions of their children.
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That is the view of Orana Local Area Command (LAC) Crime Manager Detective Inspector Rod Blackman, whose comments follow reports in the Daily Liberal expressing the frustrations of more than a dozen of the street’s residents who were fed up with being victims of vandalism attacks, assaults, verbal abuse, break-ins and arson attempts.
“The biggest issue is a lack of parental responsibility,” Detective Inspector Blackman said.
“Some dysfunctional parents are raising highly-dysfunctional children. Society needs to find a solution.”
O’Donnell Street residents, several of whom were public housing tenants themselves, said a small number of families in Housing NSW properties were responsible for a bulk of the crime and antisocial behaviour.
Detective Inspector Blackman said Dubbo’s top three hotspots for crime were the Apollo Estate, Dubbo CBD and an area bounded by O’Donnell, Leavers and Alcheringa streets.
“Sporadically, parts of South Dubbo too, but those three are our main focus,” he said.
Detective Inspector Blackman said daily monitoring of crime data took place and that determined where resources were allocated.
“Those resources might include blitz-type, plain clothes operations and general patrols,” he said.
The fact small children were responsible for a large amount of crime and antisocial behaviour did not make the police’s job any easier, according to Detective Inspector Blackman.
He said the age of criminal responsibility was 10 years old, but prosecutions of children between the ages of 10 and 14 could be difficult because of the doli incapax principle that required the prosecution to prove that not only did an offence take place but the child knew what he or she did was seriously wrong in a criminal sense.
The O’Donnell Street residents told the Daily Liberal they were concerned how many small children, some as young as three, were out in theirs and surrounding streets, armed with slingshots.
Some were frightened they would be accused of assault if they tried to take the slingshots from the children.
Detective Inspector Blackman said the law surrounding slingshots relied on an interpretation of how and where they were being used.
“Some are prohibited weapons, others are offensive implements, some are used for malicious damage and others are a child’s toy to shoot cans,” he said.
But Detective Inspector Blackman was able to provide some reassurance for residents.
“If we find a kid using a slingshot out on the street, he or she won’t be keeping it,” he said.
Meanwhile Detective Inspector Blackman said police had a good criminal intelligence network that was used to determine which people of interest, often visitors from outside of Dubbo, were in the area at any given time.
“And we gather evidence from neighbouring commands, for instance, if someone’s been bailed to Dubbo from a neighbouring town,” he said.
Detective Inspector Blackman also welcomed the NSW government’s announcement of a crackdown on people who were rorting the system by living in Housing NSW properties when their names were not on the leases.
“With the transient nature of crime, and with Dubbo being situated on that west-east corridor of crime that stretches from Bourke to western Sydney, you are getting friends and family members staying in those houses for a short time but committing a lot of crime while they are there,” he said.
“It’s a high-density public housing and low socio-economic area. It’s like a mini estate in that you will get people that move into the areas from western NSW and western Sydney that only stay a short period of time and cause some grief before we either lock them up or they move on of their own volition.”
Detective Inspector Blackman said police in Dubbo frequently referred the behaviour of public housing tenants to Housing NSW for further action.
“If a significant crime has taken place, for instance, if we conduct a search warrant and find stolen property or drugs, or if we go to a house in response to reports of a public order incident, we’ll report that,” he said.
“And quite often the department will make a request, through our memorandum of understanding, for information about tenants.
That might be because of crimes that have taken place, or tip-offs from other residents.
Detective Inspector Blackman said once criminal proceedings had taken place, police were called on to give evidence when social housing tenants were brought before the Consumer, Trader and Tenancy Tribunal (CTTT).
“We might, say, give evidence about having to turn up to 10 noisy parties at that residence,” he said.
While some residents were concerned their complaints had either not been listened to or could bring about retribution from criminals, it was important people continued to report crime and antisocial behaviour, Detective Inspector Blackman said.
“People need to have the courage to stand by their convictions, particularly when it’s Department of Housing properties, to make statements to Housing NSW, so we can support them in these applications to the CTTT for orders or evictions.”
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