ASTONISHING NUMBERS AS CITY CRIME ACCELERATES

THE latest car theft figures are so ridiculous they sound like a statistical error. Think about it – 23 vehicles stolen over three days across the Cairns Regional Council area. That equates to just shy of 2800 cars stolen annually if the same trend continues for an entire year.

At the 2016 Census there were 50,888 households with at least one vehicle across the region. More than one in 20 of those households could expect to lose their transport in any year under this deplorable scenario.

Stretch that out over a couple of decades and we would all be riding pushies to work, assuming they weren’t stolen as well.

This is all silly statistical speculation, but sometimes it helps to put baseline numbers into context.

The current surge will surely not maintain this pace for an entire year, but things are grim either way.

Glancing out front to check for the car has become as much part of the morning ritual as making coffee.

There is plenty of venom out there that places the blame squarely on Cairns MP Michael Healy’s shoulders, like some modern-day Fagin sending out urchins to rob the city every night.

People want a scapegoat, but it makes no sense to blame one MP for decades of failed policy, neglect and utter parental failure.

We need him out there pushing for the right responses, but more than that we need a massive societal shift that breaks the generational cycle.

That means boosting social services, ramping up family intervention programs and targeting the disease, not just symptoms.

Or we can take the punitive route and chuck more kids in jail.

Both options will be very expensive. Otherwise, it might be time to invest in biometric car locks that work like smartphones and need fingerprints to unlock – and yes, they exist.