Tamworth VS Crime: residents turn to Facebook to fight Tamworth crime

Fed up with constant crime in her street and community, Tara Muldoon decided to do something about it.

"Each time I went on Facebook to have a read, another poor innocent resident was a victim to crime," she said.

"I was not expecting 700 members in 48 hours."

Tamworth VS Crime, which boasts 744 followers after just a week, is a community help page. It has developed its own mentorship program and allows residents to share with other residents reports of suspicious behaviour.

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But it's more than just an electronic Neighbourhood Watch, according to joint moderator Rosslyn Parker.

"It's a support network," she said.

"People don't understand unless they've been on the receiving end. It's such an emotional invasion. I'm sure everyone would rather them go out and give them stuff rather than them come into a place that's supposed to be a safe place.

"Seeing from the comments, it seems someone's going to end up dead. Either the perpetrator or the victim; someone's definitely going to be hurt.

"This is a disaster waiting to happen."

Mrs Parker joined the Facebook page as a way to take back control of her neighbourhood.

The police have been to her house after attempted break-ins so often, they could set up a shed, she said.

"I've been living in my house going on 14 years. In ten weeks I had someone break into a car, and six attempts. There were eight attempts in my street alone," she said.

"This crime is happening all over the place. So we've got some security cameras and have been monitoring them."

She sees the page as a way to muster community support for a policy solution - a town meeting, a Koori Court system, or just long jail sentences for young offenders.

"We have to really, really act on this. I'm not one to put my name to something and roll over," Mrs Parker said.

"We need to make something happen here."

Ms Muldoon believes a youth and adolescent unit at the new Tamworth Mental Health Unit would make a difference.

Tamworth's reported crime rates are on the decline, with the number of break-ins declining from 519 in 2018/19 to just 434 in 2020.

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