By EMMA SUN
YARRA Ranges police’s Little Red Car was recently spotted targeting graffiti in Monbulk and Belgrave.
Its driver, crime prevention officer Leading Senior Constable Linda Hancock, was called to Monbulk after etchings were found on glass windows of a shop on the main street last Thursday.
Ldg Sen Const Hancock said after investigating the incident, she spoke with the owner of the property on how to best prevent similar incidents in the future.
“Research will show that if something’s damaged and it’s not repaired that it’ll be continually damaged – it’s the broken windows theory,” she said.
“If you leave something broken and you don’t repair it, it gets broken more and more whereas if it gets repaired straightaway it gets left clean.
“I wanted to speak to the owner about improving the amenity down that way and cleaning up vacant stores.”
Just a day earlier the Little Red Car was in Belgrave for a graffiti working group to brain storm on reducing graffiti in the community.
Ldg Sen Const Hancock joined other police members, councillors and township group representatives to revisit the current graffiti plan and look into what changes could be made for the future.
“I presented profiles of offenders for tagging and where our hotspots were, the council and residents reported to the group where their hotspots were and what the council’s graffiti removal officers were doing with graffiti,” she said.
“We put all that information onto the table and then we worked on where to go from there.”
