Councillor Sri’s cop-out can only increase crime
It is idiotic and irresponsible to call for reduced police numbers to cut crime, and rogue Greens councillor Jonathan Sri should know better, writes Kylie Lang.
Kylie Lang
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It is not unusual for inept, ignorant and otherwise unsuitable people to be elected to government. The political landscape is littered with out-of-touch egomaniacs who live in fantasy land. And we taxpayers and ratepayers are all the poorer for it.
Important issues are neglected or badly handled, and the best interests of the majority disregarded for personal agenda.
Jonathan Sri is a classic example.
MORE FROM KYLIE LANG: WHY JONATHAN SHOULD STOP PROTESTING
His latest spluttering of nonsense would serve only to exacerbate crime in his Brisbane ward of the Gabba, not curb it as residents deserve.
Cr Sri’s answer to the high number of assaults, thefts, drug offences and other criminal activity in West End, South Brisbane and Highgate Hill is to decrease police presence.
As dumb ideas go, this one is genius, even for him.
When asked this week about the 4101 postcode’s unfortunate form in law-breaking, the Greens councillor said: “Ironically, the easiest way to bring down the official crime rate is to reduce the number of police.”
This is not ironic. It’s wrong.
But since when has Cr Sri let facts get in the way of his ravings and anti-social activity?
This is an elected official who uses precious hours in which he should be working for the good of all ratepayers in his area to organise and attend bleeding heart protests that damage businesses and undermine people’s right to travel freely on roads their taxes fund.
This is an elected official who has been arrested and charged with contravening a police direction at a rally (the charge was later dropped) and who ignored Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk when she said in August, “Now is not the time to have mass protests, we are in a world pandemic … Queenslanders are making sacrifices to keep everyone safe”.
But Cr Sri prefers to make up his own rules, no matter how thoughtless or potentially dangerous.
So it is with his latest ill-educated observations on how to reduce crime.
We know Cr Sri has disdain for the men and women of the Queensland Police Service – he also accused them of being racist, saying in December that 22-year-old Raghe Abdi, shot dead after lunging at officers with a knife, would probably be alive if he were white.
It is high time Cr Sri acted in the best interests of his constituents.
Increased police presence is demonstrably effective in reducing crime, as confirmed by any number of credible studies.
In 2019 the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research found boosted officer numbers worked in two ways - deterring offenders in the first place, and resulting in more arrests leading to “incapacitation or cessation of offending”.
Even a 1 percent increase in the size of the force generated a 0.8 percent drop in general theft and a 1.1 percent fall in car theft. This equates to one extra officer preventing 17 thefts and four car thefts each year.
In the US, a Princeton University study found a surge in police numbers had “large and statistically significant effects on robbery, larceny, and auto theft, with suggestive evidence that police reduce murders as well”.
Researchers at Harvard Business School similarly found more visible police had “a large negative local effect on auto theft”.
But Cr Sri knows better.
Commenting further on the analysis of crimes reported to police in the past 12 months, he said the rise in crime was due to increasing population.
And that makes it OK?
Having almost 4000 crimes (and these are the ones we know about) occurring in a small pocket of Brisbane doesn’t sound crash hot, no matter how you spin it.
Perhaps the councillor is hoping reduced police numbers will mean fewer officers available to take calls about crimes, thereby fudging the truth numbers and creating an illusion of improved law and order.
Cr Sri should act for the safety and wellbeing of the residents in his area instead of pandering to his own biases.
This is not only the proper thing to do but also what he is paid to do.
THIS WEEK: LOVE/LOATHE
LOVE
US President Joe Biden telling his new political appointments: “If you’re ever working with me and I hear you treat another colleague with disrespect, talk down to someone, I promise I will fire you on the spot”.
PM Scott Morrison describing Cricket Australia’s decision to change the name of next week’s Big Bash to January 26 instead of Australia Day as “pretty ordinary”.
Amanda Gorman’s poem The Hill We Climb at Biden’s inauguration ceremony. “There is always light if only we’re brave enough to see it, if only we’re brave enough to be it.”
LOATHE
Rich, entitled tennis players and their squeezes whinging about quarantine ahead of the Australian Open.
Aboriginal activist Stephen Hagan saying the makers of Coon cheese should have consulted him on the new name. I’d agree Cheer isn’t the best but it’s a commercial call.
People capable of working refusing to do so. Little surprise the State Government’s $1.1 million Back to Work Agriculture Incentive Scheme is a flop.
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