How 26 letters explain the chaos on Melbourne’s streets

A) Arson. More than 140 arson attacks in two years, many aimed at illicit tobacco shops, proving that smoking is bad for your health.

B) Bail (refused). The act of keeping a person charged with serious criminal offences in custody until their trial. A concept as foreign to some magistrates as the intricate table setting at a druid’s picnic.

C) Compassion. For the Lock-’Em-Up Lobby, an elasticised pressure bandage used to treat snake bites.

D) Demonstrations. Allowing people to wear balaclavas when it is not snowing, open umbrellas when it is not raining, and chant clichés when no one is listening.

E) Excise. Increasing excise on tobacco has made the federal government silent partners in organised crime by promoting the cheap illegal market. There are now 1300 tobacco shops; the big ones move $50,000 in stock a month. Wastewater tests show smoking and vaping on the rise. The increased tax is not about health but wealth – raising revenue for the government.

F) Forage (as in mushrooms). In the right hands, a tasty snack. In the wrong hands, a failed defence in a triple murder trial.

G) Gangs. Filled with young men and women who prefer nocturnal meetings well away from their own suburbs where they share mutual interests in stealing cars and invading homes.

H) Hooker, Anne. A career expert on juvenile rehabilitation, a Churchill fellow and awarded an Australia Day honour. Her methods have been proved to work, which makes it astounding that she is presently unemployed. Part of her program that was successful for years in Port Phillip Prison was contrary to the view that jail is the worst place for young offenders.

She says the way forward is for those who break the rules to be punished immediately to understand the consequences of their actions. She makes them confront their crimes to realise the damage they have done and to build self-worth through work and achievement.

She proved that prison is not a life sentence to crime and there is a way back.

I) Iraq. A country that has become the safe house for Victoria’s biggest organised crime figure (see K).

J) Jail. A secure facility that young offenders drive past in cars stolen during home invasions.

K) Kaz Hamad. Organised crime figure who lives in Iraq and controls Victoria’s illicit tobacco industry. Is suspected of ordering the firebombing of the men who stole some of his tobacco. Those goons hit the wrong house in Truganina, causing the death of Katie Tangey.

Detective Inspector Chris Murray got it right when he said: “Unfortunately, the two – who I can only say are two buffoons – targeted the wrong address.” Tangey rang Triple Zero but was trapped upstairs and died before she could be rescued. There is a $500,000 reward for information on the case.

Hamad lives in a swish part of Baghdad, seemingly untroubled by the law. He has made tens of millions from illicit tobacco, controls his network through encrypted apps, pays underlings as little as $500 to torch a building and uses violence to create a near monopoly in the lucrative market.

L) Love Machine. A Prahran nightclub where the shots tend not to come from a spirit bottle but a snub-nosed revolver. It is temporarily closed after a series of violent incidents. The Comanchero outlaw motorcycle gang attacked the club’s security guards in July, leaving three men hospitalised. A couple of weeks later, the Comancheros returned, backed by members of the NGS (Next-Generation Shooters) for another brawl.

Then in August, shots were fired outside the club after a birthday party for a gang boss. It had the hallmarks of an ambush.

At nightspots, clubbing is supposed to refer to energetic movements in the act of dance rather than the energetic use of blunt objects in the act of assault. It used to be a place to pash, not bash.

M) Machete ban. A government initiative to allow people to deposit machetes used by their grandfathers to control patches of decorative bamboo planted in backyard rock gardens in the 1960s.

The chances of a gang member voluntarily giving up his machete is as likely as the Essendon Football Club Board turning up for a Devonshire tea at the official opening of Hawthorn’s state-of-the-art $100 million Dingley training facility.

N) Nice try. The attempt by former drug boss Tony Mokbel to rewrite history by having his convictions quashed by the Court of Appeal.

One conviction was quashed, a second set sent back for re-trial (which won’t happen) but a third was confirmed, meaning he remains a convicted drug dealer and won’t be able to seek millions in compensation.

In Operation Magnum, the evidence was overwhelming: Mokbel was recorded on phone taps talking about drug manufacturing while on the run in Greece after jumping bail; police had computer records from Mokbel’s crime syndicate showing the drug transactions; the testimony of an inside man who infiltrated the group, and the secret work of a police undercover officer who bought gear from Mokbel’s team.

The case was open and shut, which is why he pleaded guilty in the first place.

O) Operation Trinity. The successful police operation where 70 police each night target young offenders involved in home invasions and car-jackings.

Trinity arrests eight young offenders every night and has made more than 1450 burglary and car-theft arrests in 12 months with 65 per cent of the offenders aged 10 to 17.

Many are arrested and immediately bailed, meaning police, like anglers, use the method known as catch and release. Except their quarry are knuckleheads rather than flatheads.

P) Police helicopter. An aircraft designed to be used for rescues, searches and crime detection, not to be used as an alternative to commercial flights to attend interstate police commissioner conferences.

Q) Questionable. The state government claims that we have the toughest bail laws in the country when many young offenders continue to be bailed.

Its refusal to broaden police capacity to randomly wand people, searching for bladed weapons using legislation known as Jack’s Law that has been taken up in other states, and the decision not to bring in a protest permit policy are all questionable political decisions. And why shopping malls are precluded from using face-recognition technology to target habitual and professional shoplifters is simply bewildering.

R) Retirements and resignations. It means that despite recruiting drives and making the entrance exam easier, there remains more than 1000 police vacancies, leaving it difficult for many stations to staff even routine divisional van patrols.

Chief Commissioner Mike Bush wants more police on the beat. To achieve that, he must slow the brain drain with thousands of years of experience walking out the door.

S) Stan. The streaming service (owned by Nine which owns The Age) that has aired the first episode of the audience-breaking documentary Revealed: Death Cap Murders on the trial and conviction of beef Wellington triple murderer Erin Patterson.

The star is our crime reporter, Marta Pascual Juanola. For some reason, I also appear. Sadly, I look like Dr Evil without the cat.

T) Taskforce Summit. The ongoing police operation to find Dezi Freeman, the man who shot and killed two police officers, Detective Leading Senior Constable Neal Thompson and Senior Constable Vadim de Waart-Hottart, and injured a third on August 26 at Porepunkah.

The fear is he has killed himself and his remains have been eaten by wild animals. If he is alive, there remains a $1 million reward for information leading to his arrest, and if anyone is harbouring him, they will live to regret their stupidity. He is no victim but is a violent piece of vermin facing historical child sex offences.

A group of retired police are about to head up to the district to put some money back into the economy, presumably over the bar at several country hotels.

U) Union (CFMEU). A benevolent organisation that gives convicted criminals and suspected mobsters a second chance by teaching them industrial relations skills. This coincidentally encourages grateful companies selected for multimillion-dollar contracts to shower them with gifts such as crispy skinned roast duck, scallop in same shell, imported wine, local hot-rods and secret land packages.

V) Verdict (unanimous). The Morwell jury’s decision to find poisoner Erin Patterson guilty of three counts of murder and one of attempted murder. She has appealed and has as much chance of winning as I have to be crowned Moomba monarch.

The Crown has also appealed, claiming her 33-year minimum jail sentence is “manifestly inadequate”. She should get another three years for lacking remorse and bad acting, shedding tears that would embarrass a crocodile.

W) Wellington (beef). Traditionally, a whole fillet of beef covered with pate, mushrooms and pastry, particularly popular in the 1970s. Not as a murder weapon used to poison family members at a quiet Saturday luncheon.

X) Xenophobia. People who are frightened of different races, religions and cultures, often illustrated by stupid young men who join ultra-right organisations regurgitating bilge from a failed ideology. Their hero is Adolf Hitler, a vicious vegetarian who drank gun-cleaning oil for his indigestion, leaving him with bad breath and flatulence. The Führer was a farter not a martyr.

Y) Yelling Yobs (see X).

Z) Zaps (electric). This column advocates the use of Tasers by riot police against X and Y.

John Silvester lifts the lid on Australia’s criminal underworld. Subscribers can sign up to receive his Naked City newsletter every Thursday.