Having had enough of rising incidences of crime in their area, some residents in affluent Clayfield, Ascot, and Hamilton have now contracted private security services to keep would-be offenders at bay.
It has been nine months since several communities in Clayfield, Ascot, and Hamilton decided to hire private security guards to keep watch over their streets during the evening. These affluent communities have seen increasing incidences of vehicle theft and unlawful entry and they can no longer put up with it.
Armed with high-visibility security vests and a flashlight, private security guards at these suburbs patrol the streets during the night. Some are also assigned to just one specific area. Residents hope that security guards patrolling at night would help deter crime in their area.
Queensland Police Services said that the community-initiated measure does help in lowering the crime rate and that these trained private security guards understand when a situation needs to be escalated to QPS for assistance.
Last year, Ex-Wallaby Toutai Kefu and his family were violently attacked after their Coorparoo home was broken into, allegedly by three teenage boys armed with knives, an axe, and a machete. The horrific home invasion incident prompted residents to beef up their home security to protect their homes from criminal activities.
How do you conduct a home security assessment?
First off, good home security should:
- make it easy for an offender to be seen
- make it difficult for an offender to gain entry
- make it difficult for an offender to exit with your property
- make it difficult for an offender to gain benefit from your property.
When conducting a home security review and identifying your existing and potential security opportunities, QPS advises that the best place to start is from the outside and then work inwards.
Otherwise called the “layered approach”, homeowners should start their home security assessment from the external perimeter, then proceed to the external wall and access before checking the internal walls. After that, the next step is the internal areas, then the property and lastly, the people.
The video below discusses in detail the steps you need to take for a thorough home security assessment.
Reviewing home security | Video Credit: QueenslandPolice / YouTube
If you happen to have information for the police, you may contact Policelink immediately and provide the information using the online suspicious activity form. Or you may report crime information anonymously via Crime Stoppers or call 1800 333 000.