By Victoria Stone-Meadows
When City of Casey locals Aaron Grant and Tammie McKill took over as administrators of the Casey Crime Page on Facebook in June 2016, they had no idea how big the page would get.
There were just over 5000 members when the pair took responsibility for the page and have since grown membership to over 30,000 people.
The page acts as a community crime watch resource and a place where members of the Casey community can keep each other informed of what is happening in the region.
Mr Grant said when he and Ms McKill took on the responsibility of the page, they were forced to put rules in place.
“When we took over we had to put some strict guidelines because previously there were no rules to stop trolls from attacking our page,” Mr Grant said.
“We want people to use respectful language and try to keep it a nice peaceful page with information about what is happening, not a witch hunt.”
Crime pages and community noticeboards have sprung up all over Facebook in recent years as a kind of replacement of traditional community information channels.
While there has been some criticism of the Casey crime Page from members of the community who feel it interferes with police work, Mr Grant said he has received positive feedback from members of the police force.
“It is definitely a learning process but I have spoken to the police a few times and asked them if our page is helping them do their job and they always say yes,” Mr Grant said.
“An issue we face is people sometimes use our page to report a crime rather than going directly to the police.”
“We take it upon ourselves to ask them if they reported to the police and about 50 per cent of them they say they haven’t.”
“We always encourage them to go to the police because they aren’t going to anything about it unless people are reporting crime through their police system.”
In recent times, Mr Grant and Ms McKill have utilised the strong numbers and active participation on their Facebook page to help others.
When four-year-old Brax Kyle was killed in Berwick in April this year, the Casey Crime Page started a fund-raiser to help his family.
Similarly, with 24-year-old Luke Staveley lost his life in June, the page admins rallied support and fund-raised for the Staveley family as well.
Mr Grant says community support is a direction he would like to see the page move into as well as acting as digital neighbourhood watch.
“We don’t want to hold a fund-raiser each and every week but if there is a story that really affects people and has touched with them, we want to do what we can to support the victims of crime,” he said.
“At the end of the day, technology is the biggest thing in our lives and will have to play a massive part going forward in keeping people informed and up to date with local happenings and support.”
Mr Grant believes the Casey Crime Page has had a positive impact on the community and hopes he can continue to be a positive influence.
“It has brought the community closer together,” he said.
