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From: stephens1510
To: yoursay@dailytelegraph.com.au
Sent: Wednesday, November 04, 2009 10:19 AM
Subject: Tea and scones for vandals

Dear sir,
After a colourbond fence up the street was graffitied last Saturday night, I went to the local Police station on Monday to enquire about the "official police cautions" handed out to 4 lots of young graffiti vandals caught in the last six weeks locally.
It appears that if they admit to doing the damage, and agree, they then get a talking to.
The officer admitted that's all they can do under current regulations.
The officer also unofficially agreed with my suggestion that the vandal be made to clean up the mess, and to ensure that they keep a closer eye on what their offspring are up to at night, a $1000 fine for the parents, this would be more of a deterrent than the current serious finger wagging.
A Sutherland Council spokesperson yesterday told me she is also dismayed to see that the few graffiti vandals caught by our overworked police, are not made an example of, as I suggested.
This morning taking your article ( "Graffiti vandals sentenced to talking, tea and scones" Oct 4) into a local retirement village for comment, one elderly gentleman summed up the general feeling among the old folk there to my question, "What should be done to graffiti vandals?"
"Kick them up the backside" he said.
There has to be consequences for sneaking out at night and defacing property and a feed of scones and jam will not fix the problem. Stop pussy footing around, and treat graffiti vandalism as the crime that it is.

Regards
Hans Stephens

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This morning I observed a speed camera in operation on Springs Road, Clifton Springs. The operator
was parked on the nature strip( illegal for the commoners) and obscured by another four wheel drive
parked directly behing him on the nature strip as well as one parked directly to the side of him
making him unseeable by passing motorists. The front of the car was partly obscured by low hanging
tree branches and the car was on an angle due to the slope of the nature strip. All of this in
contravention to the operating guide lines for speed cameras in Victoria. I telephoned to voice my
complaint about the unfair operation of this camera to be told: it is legislated for camera
operators to park on nature strips. When I questioned the other problems the officer tried to be
flippant and say that the other cars may have parked after the speed camera operator the obscuring
branch did not matter and who was to say the other cars were not also speed cameras(they were
not)And besides they are privately operated. How can this be justified as nothing more than
revenue raising when they are not even prepared to operate by their won guidelines nor accept
responsibility for their illegal operations. Revenue raising? In this instance, most certainly.