SA Police Responded to Crime Crisis By Cracking Down on ... Jaywalking

The officer said, "You’ve disobeyed the little red man"

Never let it be said that South Australian police are unresponsive to the needs of citizens.

After months of complaints from CBD workers about spiralling crime rates, police responded last week by cracking down on … jaywalkers.

Never mind that violent assaults in the city are at a 12-year-high.

No matter that car theft and shoplifting are at similarly record levels.

Pedestrians stepping off sidewalks at inopportune times will not be tolerated in the great state of South Australia.

This month South Australia’s finest launched “Operation Vulnerable” to ensure hasty pedestrians don’t step onto the asphalt before the lights change.

How does this address the worrying crime crisis turning the Adelaide CBD into a no-go zone?

Well, disobeying traffic lights is a form of violence.

And the real concern with stolen cars is that they might run down errant pedestrians. Ensuring foot traffic remains well clear of nicked sedans is an obvious solution.

Now it’s true that South Australian police could focus on catching actual criminals committing actual crimes. But that would just be too much like hard work. Much easier to arrest overly enthusiastic walkers. And walkers using walkers would be even better.

Last week South Australian police issued 850 expiation notices to pedestrians, cyclists and scooter-users for violating traffic rules in the city centre.

One man told the Adelaide Advertiser how officers had jumped from an unmarked police car to caution him for crossing the road at 9.30pm.

“It was really bizarre,” the man said. “There was literally not another car on the road. The officer said, ‘you’ve disobeyed the little red man’.”

If drunken louts assault an actual man the police will shrug, too busy, not enough resources, difficult to follow up.

But if law abiding citizens in a bit of a rush disobey the little red man on the traffic lights, a constables will trample each other in the rush to make an arrest.

The jaywalker was lucky he wasn’t tasered, though that’s more a walker with a walker in a NSW nursing home. But I digress.

An Adelaide convenience store worker told local media …

“Every half an hour we get people trying to steal stuff in here. I think police need to focus more on that rather than on jack walking where, 99 per cent of the time, no one is even injured.”

Imagine being so self centred that you believe people stealing from your business should demand more police attention than plodders crossing 10m up the road from perfectly good zebra crossings.

Of course, this would require police to go after actual criminals rather than soft targets that boost their stats while providing easy revenue to fill State Government coffers.

The issuance of 850 expiation notices in just one week gives police a big number to point to when they are challenged as to what they are doing about rising crime in the CBD.

That it is 850 interactions with people crossing the road will not bother police media. And besides, they’ll count on that small detail being glossed over or forgotten.

Workers in the Adelaide CBD have every right to be outraged at the poor level of service they are getting from their police force.

The South Australian Police Commissioner earlier this year told inner city traders they needed to exercise “perspective” when considering whether to report a crime.

Police couldn’t possibly be expected to attend every reported crime, he said.

But if you dare to step off the sidewalk before the little green man appears … well there are evidently more than enough officers ready and willing to police that!