Community & Business
6 April, 2022
Crime Stoppers volunteer group largest in state
JUST three years after establishing their committee, Far North Crime Stoppers volunteers have grown exponentially, resulting in the committee being recognised as the largest of its kind in Queensland.
The Crime Stoppers Far North Queensland Volunteer Area Committee (FNQVAC) was formed in 2019, after years of the region not having a substantial crime stoppers presence.
Initially starting with just four members, all on the committee, the group has grown to include 57 official members.
This milestone has made the committee, the 33rd established in Queensland, officially the largest of its kind in the state and subsequently the country as other states do not have VACs.
The volunteers were recognised for their achievements during a recent information session attended by the Crime Stoppers volunteer liaison Andrew Jones and their police representative, Detective Inspector of the Far North District Crime Group Kevin Goan.
FNQVAC chair Mladen Bosnic believes area committees are effective due to local involvement, and their desire for a safer community.
“Personally, I believe having a VAC garners more results because of the community involvement,” he said.
Mr Bosnic attributes the committee’s recent growth to community involvement and the VACs involvement in the Alison Bernard case, which Mr Bosnic has travelled to the Cape on several occasions.
“I still wanted to recruit more, so I put it out on the Mareeba community noticeboard and on my Facebook page,” he said
“I told them we did this, but we’ve got a few more events coming up and would love to hear from interested people and that started an avalanche of inquiries.
“We’ve got a fantastic community that takes crime and law and order issues very seriously and they feel they are contributing by encouraging people to report crime.
“We are not the police, we are volunteers with Crime Stoppers Queensland and all we do is encourage the reporting of crime.”
The FNQVAC committee are extremely proud to be recognised and Mr Bosnic says it has reinforced his beliefs in crime prevention.
“It feels great, it’s as simple as that I don’t know how else to put it,” he said.
“It underscores what I’ve always believed – that you’ve got to get the community involved in promoting the message to report crime.”
While Crime Stoppers cannot enforce the law, they constantly encourage people to report crime, because if a crime is not reported, it didn’t happen.
“Personally, I think it’s total apathy for someone to say ‘I’m not reporting it because nothing gets done’. If it’s not reported, it’s not recorded and if it’s not recorded it didn’t happen,” Mr Bosnic said.
“It’s very hard to argue for resources from the crime prevention dollar if you haven’t got the stats to back it up.”
