Rise in crime driven by ice

Post-COVID spike feared

ICE has seen an almost uninterrupted 10-year rise in Geelong, with police data showing the number of people charged with using or possessing the deadly drug has tripled in just five years.

And, as the cost of ice plummets back to pre-pandemic levels after skyrocketing in 2020, police are preparing to tackle an increase in methamphetamine use in Geelong — and the crime jump that comes with it.

The latest crime statistics, compiled for the Geelong Advertiser by the Crime Statistics Agency, show the 90 methamphetamine “use and possession” offences recorded in the year to March 2015 exploded to 302 offences in the year to September

2020.

Over the past decade, Geelong’s methamphetamine use and possession offences increased annually on all but one occasion, after just seven offences were recorded in the year to March 2012.

The “use and possession” offences increase comes as drug drivers continually outnumber drink drivers on Geelong’s roads — with ice the most commonly detected drug.

Police data showed 133 drug-affected drivers were caught on the region’s roads between January 1 and June 30 last year, compared with 75 drink drivers.

The majority of Geelong’s crimes are linked to drug use, with an increase in drug use resulting in an increase in crime, Geelong Tasking and Crime Intervention Task Force (TACIT) Sergeant Craig Jarvis said.

Sergeant Davis said police expected to see more ice on the streets as the price of the drug continued to fall post-pandemic.

“Last year we probably found the ice price triple, if not quadruple in price during the peak of COVID, just because of supply and demand. There was still the demand, but there wasn’t as much supply there,” Sergeant Davis said.

“Then it’s slowly made its way back down, and it’s nearly back down to the normal price levels in the last couple of months.

“If you see use of any sort of drug increase, it increases crime as well … the majority of crimes are drug-related in some way shape or form.

“The prices are quite expensive for ice, so to be able to afford it, a heavy user has to commit crime or traffic to support any sort of habit.”

Geelong’s former top cop, recently retired superintendent Craig Gillard (pictured), told the Geelong Advertiser there was “no doubt about it” that drugs were driving crime in the region.

Recovered ice addict Dain Kindred said there was a “treacherous world” of methamphetamine in Geelong, with “different levels of ice users”.

“There’s the real scummy ones you see in the mall and stuff like that, and they’re the low, low level that don’t really deal or anything,” he said.

“Then there’s the middle guys who are doing crimes like robbing houses and petty stuff, to supply their habit.

“And there’s the next level who are dealing a bit. Those guys are all carrying guns, every single one of them, myself included at the time. I had a lot of guns.

“And then there’s the next level up again, and they’re the guys pulling the strings, and getting people to enforce for them and collect for them. Debts will get massive. I know of times where people have been given $20,000 worth of ice, and then when they’ve left, the same person who gave them the ice has set them up to get robbed — so then they’re still owed that $20,000 and they’ve got their ice back.”