Queensland Police have today announced a new taskforce specifically dedicated to cracking down on violent activity of criminal street gangs across South East Queensland.
Taskforce Uniform Knot will begin this week and will focus on unlawful activity by criminal street gangs, including serious personal violence offences, property offences, weapon offences, serious fraud offences and public disturbances.
Detective Superintendent Brendan Smith is in charge of the operation and says the taskforce will also aim to help troubled youths turn their lives around.
“The taskforce is taking a coordinated and collaborative approach and considering a range of prevention and deterrent measures including for those at risk of joining these criminal street gangs, along with exit pathways for those wanting to leave,” Detective Superintendent Smith said.
“Some of the crimes we’re seeing are opportunistic crimes or inter-gang crimes, therefore the taskforce is committed to responding to this unacceptable and unsafe behaviour before it escalates any further.”
Detective Supt Smith said the taskforce will be “acting and building on existing intelligence”.
He said so far the intelligence shows the offending involves a “small cohort that identify as part of criminal street gangs, who are from diverse backgrounds and range in age from early teens to mid-twenties”.
“We know the underlying drivers of these crimes are complex including social disadvantage and disengagement,” Detective Supt Smith said.
“This cohort of youths are drawn together for various reasons and at times are involved in serious crimes.
“It is this behaviour we need to address collectively.”
It comes following a dramatic escalation in street crime over the past few months across Brisbane, Logan and the Gold Coast, involving a spate of home break-ins and car robberies, which are often flaunted on social media.
Queensland Police will provide further details about the new taskforce at a press conference on Thursday afternoon.
