CCTV cameras and community awareness were discussed at a Mowbray Community Policing Forum (CPF) annual general meeting on Monday.
Marc Gammon, chairman of the Little Mowbray Rosebank Improvement District, said they wanted to have four licence-plate recognition (LPR) cameras in their area before the end of the year.
The cameras would be able to identify vehicles that had been stolen, hijacked, or used in criminal activity.
Mr Gammon said the cameras would be monitored by a new 24-hour surveillance centre launched in September(“Mowbray crime prevention gets a boost,” Southern Suburbs Tatler, September 27).
The control centre would pick up alerts from the cameras and radio improvement-district patrol cars and the police, said Mr Gammon.
Mowbray CPF chairman, Jonathan Hobday, said the cameras would help to detect and deter crime.
“When the crooks know that there are cameras, they rather go somewhere else,” he said.
Mowbray police station commander, Lieutenant Colonel May-Louise Dyers, said business robberies, thefts from vehicles and carjackings were common crimes in the area, and she cautioned residents to be on their guard. Motorists who suspected they were being following should drive to the nearest police station.
She advised families going away on holiday to let their local police station know so that officers could monitor their empty homes.