More police is not enough to stem the flow of street assaults *A trio of thugs beats a stranger in a subway, punting his head like a football. An 18 year old looks the wrong way at another outside a party and is punched, stomped and beaten with a cane by 10 other party attendees*. A respected doctor takes an evening stroll and has his skull fractured with a baseball bat. A suburban football player is choked unconscious at a fast food joint.
Unsuspecting young men are being felled, hospitalized and sometimes killed for a backward glance or a misspoken word.More police on our streets is not enough to stop the amount of violence and assaults that occur every week. Victoria Police have recently admitted that since the year 2000, attacks by 2 or more thugs have jumped almost 70% to more than 2100 a year in Victoria alone. And this isn’t just a problem that can be solved by putting a few extra coppers out on the street at night.
Today, I will be informing you of how else to tackle the issue of street violence other than putting more police out in the open to protect people.Police alone will not quell the rising level of assaults. Other measures need to be explored in order to significantly reduce the number of street attacks. I will be explaining what else should be looked at by our Government in order to reduce assaults.
Not only should more police be put out on our streets, but there should also be better education to young adolescence about the consequences of street violence, as well as an anti-violence campaign to educate the public and make them aware of the ramifications of such actions.Tougher laws regarding the consumption of alcohol should also be looked at. There have been calls for a TAC style advertising campaign to drive home the realities and consequences of street violence. Les Twentyman, who runs the 20th Man Foundation, has said that we now need to accept that street violence is a major crisis, and we need to tackle it like drink driving and speeding. These very successful media campaigns by the TAC have significantly reduced the number of incidents and fatalities on our roads.The time has come for the public of Victoria to become aware, just like drink driving and speeding the traumatic consequences of street violence.
Just like the road toll campaign, a media campaign should attempt to make young citizens who go out at night to party and to consume alcohol think twice about what could happen if they either get too inebriated or if they could be entering a danger zone for aggression and hostility. Secondly, there should be tougher laws regarding nightclubs, bars and the selling of alcohol.If you thought that the laws are tough now, then you should look at the rising number of alcohol related assaults. Nightclubs need to be restricted, and actions such as lowering hours and reducing the level of alcohol served.
The same applies for bars. They should be closing earlier and making sure that the bartender does not sell a drink to someone he or she believes should not consume it. In conclusion, just by putting more police in trouble spots around Victoria is not enough solely by itself.It will help but there is more that must be done to ensure that Victoria becomes a safer community on a whole.
Police cannot do all the work for us. There are simply just not enough resources to viably have police everywhere. Education and broadening awareness of the issue is vital for the future generations of young Australians to follow a good example set by our education system. The time has come to regain our streets. Thankyou.
