Radical solution to city lawlessness by urban crime expert

An urban, anti-social issues analyst has urged a total rethink of the way problem cohorts are managed in the fight against city violence and lawlessness.

AN URBAN analyst who specialises in solving anti-social issues in cities has urged a total rethink of the efforts to tackle violence and criminal activity.

Skyrocketing City Safe complaints from 12 in 2017 to 233 in 2021 prompted a four-year Cairns Regional Council Community Safety Plan endorsed last week as the council moves to safeguard business as post-Covid travellers return to the Far North.

Included in the yet-to-be-funded plan was a pilot of “wet zones” to keep alcohol-dependent rough sleepers out of the public eye and after-hours access to a night shelter for at-risk youths on the street after dark.

The Cairns Tactical Crime Squad in the Cairns CBD.

Doctor of sociology, author and behavioural therapist Dr Alec McHarg is an urban analyst who specialises on identifying and solving city issues relating to violence, crime and alcohol consumption.

The Coffs Harbour-based expert has urged a total rethink of the issues plaguing Cairns that includes techniques to modify problem behaviour through a shared ownership of city spaces.

“It’s a mindset issue, basically training has to be about behavioural change and until we address a behavioural change then the rest is not going to work,” he said.

“The first thing is council rangers … have to identify people that want to be involved at grassroots level and they need to be attending meetings with (local stakeholders) and have to be included in the decision making process.”

Urban analyst Alec McHarg has recently visited Cairns to engage with business owners about crime in the CBD.

Having worked to tackle city crime in some of the worst-affected major cities of Europe and closer to home with indigenous councils in the Northern Territory, Dr McHarg stressed locking people up, stricter alcohol restrictions and hardline policing was not the answer.

“Everybody that’s lives or uses the (CBD) is going to be part of a group and there has to be strategies, not a policing strategy, not a council strategy but a neighbourhood strategy,” he said.

“State government, they would pay for that and the community would provide the expertise.”

Top of the list to connect with wayward teens and homeless drunks was grassroots hospitality training at specialist cafes.

At the corner of a Cairns CBD crime hotspot on the corner of Lake and Shields streets. Picture: Peter Carruthers

Encouraging problem groups to take ownership and pride in their city while learning new skills as a barista or food service employee was key to making the city a safer place for visitors, Dr McHarg said.

“(Indigenous people) feel they don’t own anything and this is one of the major characteristics of the problem,” he said.

Although first nations CBD users are over-represented in city crime numbers, a non-indigenous cohort also causes issues.

According to council figures about 130 rough sleepers are known to be responsible for about 46 per cent of city disturbances.

A homeless man in Abbott St. Picture: Brendan Radke

And the council has identified about 40 young people that are high-risk repeat offenders known to both the Youth Justice and Child Safety Departments.

This cohort is responsible for more than 400 offences each year.

Asked if the pending trial of a wet zone aimed at severely dependent drinkers unwilling to get off the grog, Dr McHarg was optimistic of success.

“It is part of the solution,” he said.

Follow @petercarruther1

Originally published as Radical solution to city lawlessness by urban crime expert