Editorial March 31st 2023

Welcome to this week’s editorial, It is no longer a rare thing to hear of a car being stolen. Local Social media has at least one story a day of someone’s car being stolen. But why the increase in car thefts? It is clear that the cars were locked but that doesn’t seem to hinder. So who are these car thieves, why are they doing it, and what can be done? One might first imagine that a car thief doesn’t have a car. As they walk from place to place they must tire and, for lack of public transport, especially at 4am in the morning, they decide that your car, any car, is better than walking. If this was the case you would expect to find the stolen cars parked nicely outside the miscreants house the following morning, waiting for the thief to wake, shower and then drive the car back to where he found it, possibly adding a note to say sorry and thank you attached to a $20 note under the windscreen to cover petrol. But no. The tired car thief didn’t actually need your car to go home in. He (and his friends) simply wanted to take your car, the one you need, the one you own and worked hard to buy, for a joy ride to then dump it somewhere remote and destroy it. They neither care for the car or for you. They don’t care if you rely on the car for work, for health, for family. THEY just don’t care. Single mums, tradies, the elderly. All preyed on. But who are THEY? They are us. THEY are the sons and daughters of people we know, our neighbours, work colleagues, social friends. They live among us and at night they slink in the shadows to steal all manner of things from pot plants to cars and boats. THEY are bold and enter our homes as we sleep. And THEY do it in defiance because the odds are that they will not be caught. The bottom line is that THEY steal because THEY can and the repercussions, especially for the young offenders, are basically nil. If THEY stole cars because they needed a car then we could all argue for affordable cars to be provided, just like affordable housing . If they stole cars because they can’t afford petrol then we could all argue for COUPONS to provide discount fuel. But it turns out they don’t need the car at all. Our cars, our property, our civic facilities are theirs to do as they wish, and mostly with no consequence. Some will say THEY are bored. Some will say they are angry, disillusioned, forgotten. Some might say they are mentally stressed and lashing out while others discount it as youthful whim that they will grow out of. But the cost of their theft is high. The immediate impact to the car owner is never considered. The paper work, the time spent to replace or repair, the disruption to life and to lives. Added to that the absolute violation that comes if the keys were stolen whilst the car owner was sleeping. With that comes fear. In a selfish act a victim’s world is turned upside down. And it is happening every night in your town, your suburb, your street, most likely by someone in your community, a son, a daughter, a neighbour. But what to do? Car alarms, GPS trackers, deadlocks on doors and windows, spotlights in the garden, security cameras? But what ever we do it will continue unless we learn WHY? Why do THEY feel so privileged to indifferently impact another’s life for nothing more than small change and entertainment. There is an underbelly of nastiness living in Eurobodalla. A sub-class that destroys lives at night with the theft of cars and personal belongings. This sub-class within our community slinks in shadows and destroys others dreams and efforts. They graffiti and vandalise local projects. They trash our local public toilets to the point where they are unusable and require steel gates to be locked tight at night. Is it nature? Is it nurture? What do these thieves, this sub-class of miscreants, derive from their destroying their own community from within? Maybe we need to ask them why they do it. Maybe that is where we need to start. Maybe we need to hear the anger they have for having been born into a world that, for one reason or another, owes them, setting them on a path of entitled self indulgence. The current offend, arrest, incarcerate, release, offend continue isn’t working either. And it is teaching, by example the younger ones coming up the line. Oddly this theft, disrespect, disregard of others in one’s community is something that I have not seen in the poorest of poor places I have been, unless irrationally drug related. Car theft for pleasure is not drug related. So what is this selfish entitlement, this bravado of kudos, and where does it come from? It exists, it will continue to exist, and alas, it will most likely remain unspoken. And for that we will all be the poorer. So lock up your homes, and your cars, your businesses — this is no longer the place it used to be. Until next—Lei Image source: http://crimetool.bocsar.nsw.gov.au/bocsar/