It's a sign of the criminals' success. The whole concept of the Police Assistance Line is flawed. It puts another layer of bureaucracy between victims and police and removes responsibility from individual officers and police stations. Basham said there was enormous under-reporting of crime in NSW, particularly among ethnic communities. In the past year or two, anecdotes about escalating crime in Sydney have spread, despite official reassurances.
People tell each other about crime in their street that no-one ever reads in the newspapers.
In my own sleepy, modest suburb, the local bottle shop has been held up, with guns and knives, at least four times in the past year, at all hours of the day. The owners valiantly keep trading but customers are scared of shopping there in case they become victims. She was told later by police he was targeting mothers and nannies, following them home from supermarkets and threatening their children. Other neighbours talk about a cat burglar in a nearby suburb who breaks into houses at night while residents are asleep. The latest statistics only begin to reflect the anecdotes.