Cops blame burglary spike on itinerant surge, warn against vigilantism

Police have blamed a ‘massive increase’ in property crime on a surge of thousands of rough sleepers in Darwin while cautioning against the temptation ‘to go down the vigilante path’.

POLICE have blamed a “massive increase” in property crime on a surge of thousands of long grassers sleeping rough in Darwin while cautioning against the temptation “to go down the vigilante path”.

Superintendent John Ginnane said a major reason for the spike in break-ins in the year to April was due to the number of itinerants skyrocketing to up to 4500, from an average of about 700.

“Those numbers have now gone down to under 1000, but a lot of the commercial break-ins that we’ve seen, particularly in recent times, have been itinerants breaking into shops and other similar premises, predominantly looking for alcohol,” he said.

Supt Ginnane said Territorians from remote communities came to Darwin for a variety of reasons, but recent unrest in Wadeye that saw hundreds of people displaced had contributed to the surge.

“Access to alcohol is one, people want to come in and see family,” he said.

“There’s been some unrest at certain other communities in recent months, that’s also brought other people in, they’re sleeping rough and they’re getting by as best they can, I think it’s a combination of those factors.”

Supt Ginnane said police “catch a lot of criminals” and discouraged residents and business owners from taking matters into their own hands if targeted by grog thieves.

Superintendent John Ginnane.

“People are entitled to take reasonable and proportionate steps to protect their own property,” he said.

“Having said that, nobody really knows what the state of mind is of a person who breaks into a premises, particularly if they’re desperate enough to look for alcohol they couldn’t obtain by any other means.”

Supt Ginnane said the message to anyone tempted to resort to vigilantism was to “please, let the police do their job”.

“We make hundreds of arrests and we have made a considerable number of arrests in recent times, the offenders in the matters are almost invariably caught and prosecuted,” he said.

“I know that it is tempting to go down the vigilante path, but we would advise against it because you really don’t know who you are dealing with.”