JUVENILE CRIME VOLUNTEERS THREATEN WALKOUT

The four community members on Broome Shire’s community safety working group are threatening to resign.

Member Andrew Chambers said they were frustrated at what they called a lack of transparency as to how the WA Government’s promised $50 million to tackle youth crime in the Kimberley was being spent.

“There hasn’t really been an abatement in crime,” he said. “There’s been a massive upswing in graffiti, a lot of it directly aimed against the Police. So it’s just very disappointing that there is no innovation shown by the State agencies in addressing these issues other than sending up more very expensive police to add to the existing garrison up here.”

Mr Chambers said they did not have access to official police crime statistics, so they had to rely on their own perception of how well the various initiatives were going.

“Facts about what’s occurring and consultation have been very thin on the ground,” he said. “It’s very much just been deposited with a variety of agencies and none of us are really privy as to what’s going on.”

A spokesman for WA Police minister Paul Papalia said crime statistics were freely available online.

https://www.police.wa.gov.au/crime/crimestatistics#/