Approximately 250 concerned local residents took time out on a Sunday to cram into the Goonellabah Workers Sports Club to learn what is and can be done to reduce the recent increase in the Goonellabah crime rate.

Both the ground floor meeting rooms were needed to seat residents as organiser Andre Els, Member for Lismore Janelle Saffin, Member for Page Kevin Hogan, local resident Mark Ward and security expert Levi Loughlin addressed the room on safety, police, legislation and their own experience.

The audience also shared their break-and-enter or car theft experiences, some of which were disturbing.

Ex-police officer Greg Nomchong moved to Lismore about 15 months ago to be closer to his children. One night he had a neighbour call him saying people were smashing his caravan window. He went outside to investigate and the criminals were not far from the scene and noticed his torch then came back confronted and physically assaulted him, one with a piece of 4x4 and stole his mobile phone.

Another story told of a gang of youths outside Woolworths that harassed people and kicked a dog while the owner was buying groceries in-store. The regular rock-throwing occurrence was also mentioned near the skate park on Oliver Avenue.

Mark Ward created a map of where crimes had occurred based on residents' anecdotal stories on Facebook. People were encouraged to go up to the map and add their details to the map.

Andre Els showed the map to local police last week and was told: "That's only a fraction of it."

As more and more people related their own theft or attempted theft experience, that statement was very plausible.

The tips given to the room to discourage potential crime were similar to what Richmond Police District Superintendent Scott Tanner told the Lismore App last week which was to make sure the basics were adhered to each night. This included locking all doors and windows in both the house and the car/s with no spare keys kept in the car/s and keeping keys out of view in the house.

Levi Loughlin gave suggestions about sensor lights and security cameras, some of which are DIY and affordable so vision can be recorded and given to police who can identify and charge those involved. "A minimum full HD (high definition) 1080 pixels will recognise the person," Levi said.

Naturally, the conversation turned to the fact police have limited powers if the perpetrators are underage with residents calling on Kevin Hogan and Janelle Saffin to help change the legislation so tougher penalties can apply and these kids are taken off the street.

"For me, the reasons behind the kids who are doing this are complex, but the solutions are actually quite simple," Kevin Hogan told the room.

"We have this issue in Goonellabah right now, we have this issue in Coraki right now and we have this issue in parts of Casino right now. This is not hundreds of kids running around doing this, this is a very small percentage of our community who are doing this and the police generally know exactly who they are. But I think we've got to the stage where, as a community, we have to deal with them very differently."

"The initial thing that has to happen, because you are not safe in your house and you're not fully safe in your community, is they have to be taken off the streets. Right now, the legislation does not support our police to do that."

Mr Hogan did point out that this is a state issue and that he was not pointing the finger at Janelle Saffin and her government because the Liberal/National government did not make changes when in power for 10 years.

Mr Hogan said he believed the current law was five warnings and three cautions for offenders who perform break-and-enters and car theft before they are charged.

When we asked Ms Saffin about what she can do to change the legal status of young offenders, she replied "The first action I can take on behalf of the 250 residents here today and the others who have contacted me is to make sure that the appropriate ministers in government are hearing about what's going on and their concern. So that's obviously Minister for Police, Minister for Youth, Minister for Youth Justice, and also the Attorney General."

"I did talk to Superintendent Tanner about what they're doing, so I'm well aware of Operation Mongoose, which they've caught some of the people. Then what do we do then? And we go between some people say, take them off the streets, lock them up and others say we have to try and get them so that they won't reoffend."

"For me, I want to work as well with a program that does change their behaviour, so that no matter what situation they're in, what home environment and you heard from a mother here today, she's a good mum and she's wanting help because her kids are up to stuff. I've been talking with the Justice Reinvest people and saying can we do that here? (Justice reinvestment is a way of reducing Aboriginal People's interactions with the criminal justice system). I think we have to do it all"

Ms Saffin said changing legislation is not difficult but change it to what? She also said the police are not always backed up by the support they need.

"So, if someone gets a caution, we need all the other people and community agencies working together to support that young person who gets a caution and that's what we need to focus on."

(Andre Els (left) with Janelle Saffin and Kevin Hogan)

A brave mother of a 14-year-old who is committing some of these crimes said not all juvenile criminals come from dysfunctional families. For the last 18 months, she has been trying to get her son to stop and once she found out what the crime was so she took her son down to the shops to face the owners/manager. She said the police pick and choose when to lay charges and don't check up on curfews when they are given out.

"18 months I've chased this child around for, not once has he been charged," she said.

Jenny Smith introduced herself as a community person and traditional owner. Jenny believed that jail does not work for "our" young men but she said that we have to take off the softly softly approach and give them hard love.

"These young people, and it's not just black fellas, there's white fellas too because I've picked up a lot of white kids, what we need is hard love. We need a place out of town that has no electricity, a working farm. They need to go back and learn respect. They need to know what it was like when we grew up, we had to earn our way."

"This generation now, black, white brindle, come from the gimme gimme tribe. Give me this, give me that. I think as a collective, we need to get together to say no to this."

Jenny also believed jail was not the answer as she has seen kids come out as drug addicts.

Jenny finished with, "We need to not make this a race thing, it is a community thing. It takes a community to raise a child. We're all in this together."

After two hours on a Sunday morning, people left more knowledgeable about how to reduce the risk of having a crime committed against them plus some suggestions for the future.

There is a local neighbourhood watch-style app called 'WeWatch' introduced by Mark Ward who encouraged people to download it. When an incident occurs, people should register it which then alerts other people within 1km of the street where the crime took place. It is free to download from the App Store or Google Play store.