Australia

As someone who grew up in Malanda... not much crime there as far as I know. Everyone in the town is on a first name basis and friendly.

But other towns only slightly larger in the same area are out of control. I'm talking nuisance crimes - such as a kid smashing in the windscreen of your car with a baseball bat or spray painting a penis on your shop sign or straight up burning a business building to the ground for no reason other than they think it's funny.

If it was once in a blue moon... ok. That's what insurance is for. But when you're personally a victim of stuff like that several times a year and so is everyone else you know... it's borderline unliveable. The police force are so under-funded most of these crimes don't even get reported. They show up four days later and take a few notes, and that's it.

As for what Knuth is doing about it... not much he can do other than complain. Police are run from Brisbane and it's clear they don't think it's a priority. Shit's been getting worse every year for as long as I've lived here. Supposedly they need 150 additional officers for the district and recently hired four. They don't report how many retired or quit in frustration (I suspect more than four).

Last time I had a chat with my local officer, he said he's in hot water because an independent audit reported people speeding regularly on a stretch of highway but where he'd never issued any speeding fines. Its a down hill where you need to be riding the brakes to stay within the speed limit and was recently reduced from 100km/h to 60km/h for no reason — the road is safer than it ever has been, due to upgrades, and there was never a crash even before the safety improvements.