"The best thing about community efforts like Neighbourhood Watch is that they are run by local people who know the needs of their communities and have come up with innovative ways to provide help where it's most needed," Mr O'Connor said.
The funding comes as a result of a concerted effort by volunteers to achieve genuine funding to help develop the programme in the broadest and most visible way since NHW was incorporated as an Australasian representative body in 2006.
ACT NHW spokesperson Graeme Hush says it is really important for the general public to understand what this funding actually represents. “The money won’t be distributed across local NHW areas in such inconsequential amounts that it won’t have any meaning or impact for the programme. That would be ludicrous. Neighbourhood Watch is the biggest community-based crime prevention program in the country, covering more than three million homes” he said.
“For the effects of the funding to be felt at the very doors of our local neighbourhoods, it is necessary that it be applied to establish the programme properly at the national level so that resources can be reproduced more consistently and made more accessible more widely” he added.
The ‘Proceeds of Crime’ act was passed in the Australian parliament in late 2002 and became operational in January 2003. “The best thing by far is to deal with this funding in the way the act provides” Mr Hush said. He further asserted that Subsection 298(1) of the Act provides that the Minister may approve a program for the expenditure of money standing to the credit of the Confiscated Assets Account (CAA). Subsection 298(2) provides that expenditure is to be approved for one or more of the following purposes:
- crime prevention measures
- law enforcement measures
- measures relating to treatment of drug addiction, and
- diversionary measures relating to the illegal use of drugs.
"We are taking the ill-gotten gains of the crooks and giving it to community organisations to assist law enforcement bodies and police in fighting crime," the minister Mr O'Connor said on Monday night. “This is a first for the Commonwealth. $1.5 million for Neighbourhood Watch Australasia over three years is the biggest Commonwealth funding for community-based crime prevention” he said.
A national office with full-time staff will be set up for Neighbourhood Watch Australasia for the first time, a resource that will go a long way towards helping better support the tens of thousands of NHW volunteers.
Neighbourhood Watch Australasia president Tess Walsh was very happy about the announcement and applauded the use of crime proceeds as a way to help her organisation reach more communities.
"It's an extension of the saying 'crime does not pay', maybe it can pay for some people to do good things," Ms. Walsh said.
Money will be diverted into better adapting Neighbourhood Watch programs to new communication technologies, developing the use of social media in the daily battle against crime.
Some of the other emphases with regard to the use of the funding included the development of specific strategies in remote areas to combat crime and, of increasing importance, the fear of crime.
One example of the sorts of broad and accessible programmes that could be rolled out under this funding was cited at the conference where cybercrime experts had been conscripted in one jurisdiction to teach seniors groups about dangers posed by online scammers.
The way that everyday Australians will get a say in how the money is spent is by applying to use local-level grants for community safety and crime prevention projects which is one of the agreed criteria for use of a percentage of the funding and was part of the final submission made by the NHWA executive.
In polls conducted across a number of media scenarios after the announcement was made, over 80% of people were consistently positive about proceeds of crime confiscated by governments being a funding source for community based crime prevention programmes like Neighbourhood Watch.
ACT NHW Media & Marketing
Helpful Source: Herald Sun Article by Michael Harvey 10 October 2011
