Elsie Lange
Hume Inspector Dean Clinton is urging residents to take notice of Victoria Police’s and Crime Stoppers Victoria’s new campaign to remind Victorians to check their cars.
Data from Crime Statistics Agency shows 14,881 motor vehicle theft offences were recorded state-wide in the year to March 2022, with more than 47,000 thefts from motor vehicles during the same period.
In Hume, there were 1690 thefts from motor vehicles recorded.
The ‘You’ve Been Checked’ campaign encourages car owners to be more careful about leaving their vehicles unlocked, or leaving their valuable items on display.
Inspector Clinton said he knew in Hume almost half of thefts from and of cars and a significant proportion of burglaries related to unlocked cars and houses.
“We often are telling people in order to try and help us prevent crime in Hume, reduce our crime significantly… that it’s actually really important for people to check their cars every time, not to leave their cars running with the keys in them, even if they are a delivery driver for instance and also to lock their houses,” Inspector Clinton said.
“Not just the front door, but the back door, and the internal garage door.
“The reason being is that a lot of people will just walk around and they will just [commit] a crime of opportunity, they’ll just try doors to see if they can get an easy set of keys, cash out of the console… if the car’s locked, they will potentially just move on.”
Inspector Clinton said while it was paramount police caught the offenders and was not victim blaming, it was also important that people knew simply locking their belongings would reduce their chances of becoming a victim of crime.
“It really is just crime of opportunity, so we really want to hold the offenders accountable and no one should be opening other peoples’ cars and committing thefts full stop… at the end of the day if people lock their cars and lock their houses… it just makes it that little bit harder,” he said.
