Brazen is the word that best describes the sort of criminal who steals a handbag from a kitchen bench or a car from a garage.
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Sadly we live in a city where petty criminals roam the streets committing what is commonly referred to as opportunistic crime.
This is the sort of crime that occurs when people leave their garage door up allowing access to the attached house.
It’s also the sort of crime that occurs when people leave cash in their unlocked car.
It seems these days if we’re to avoid becoming victims we have to change the way we live.
Of course we are not just talking about property loss, we’re talking about losing our peace of mind.
It is bad enough when someone breaks into our car when it is in the shopping centre car park, but it is even more frightening when they do it while our car is parked in our own driveway.
We’ve probably all been victims of this so-called petty crime in the past, and remember exactly what it feels like to have our own space, our house or our car, violated.
However despite the lasting feeling of annoyance, anger and injustice that we may have felt, many of us continue to leave ourselves susceptible to this sort of crime.
How many of us leave our windows unlocked at night, mow the backyard lawn with the front door unlocked or forget to ensure our handbag is zipped up while we’re grocery shopping?
Of course we’re all guilty of leaving ourselves open to the handy work of these undesirables.
It seems these days if we’re to avoid becoming victims we have to change the way we live.
The days of to being free and easy are gone. We must be extra vigilant and ensure our young children and elderly relatives are vigilant too.
While police target this kind of criminal activity, they make it clear it’s up to the public to do what they can to help.
Canobolas Local Area Commander superintendent Shane Cribb told the Central Western Daily earlier this year that most of the robbery incidents in Orange were aimed at “softer targets”.
“It’s the robbery of the pizza driver, the robbery of the kid down at the park for his mobile phone,” superintendent Cribbs said.
It’s now up to each and every one of us to ensure we take crime prevention into our own hands and don’t become the soft targets which make policing our city so difficult.
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