Safer Melville Partnership with WA Police

The City of Melville Community Safety Service (CSS) works very closely with local police to address safety and crime prevention in the community. Whilst on patrol, CSS Officers contact the police immediately when they observe suspicious behaviour or activity; this information may assist police to prosecute offenders.

CSS Officers also meet with the Officer’s in Charge from the local stations on a weekly basis to gather “hotspot” information to target CSS patrols. Police are also represented at the CSS monthly team leaders meetings, the City’s Neighbourhood Watch meetings, and the Safer Melville Advisory Committee meetings.  The police have also worked closely with City staff to develop a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the City and WA Police to formalise information sharing. 

July 2010 saw the City and police formalise their partnership to achieve a Safer Melville by signing an agreement and setting tangible outcomes to benefit the local community.  One of the outcomes was a strategy to provide targeted safety and crime prevention education initiatives to the local community, which has been delivered with great success through initiatives including:

• Safety Scoop advertising campaign in the Melville Times, offering practical tips to help residents keep themselves, family and property safe.
• Hosting two free Senior’s Safety Sessions attended by more than 350 seniors from the local community. 
• Eye’s on the Street program which trained an additional 112 City of Melville personnel, including waste collectors, maintenance workers and parks staff to detect and report suspicious behaviour
• Hosting two Safety and Sirens library activities for pre-school aged children attended by more than 100 children and 75 adults.
• Signing of a three year funding agreement with Constable Care to provide life skills education shows in 24 local primary schools.

The City and WA Police are currently identifying opportunities to continue and build this partnership, and have already committed to the continuation of a number of the above initiatives.