An armed robbery. A teenager stabbed. A woman bashed and robbed while walking home. Another woman bashed in her Long Gully home.

Surrounding towns have not been immune with two men bashed unconscious in Castlemaine.

These are the incidents that made news – how many others went unreported?

So is this a week out of the ordinary or the start of a trend? What’s most concerning is that knives have been used in some of these incidents.

Senior police expressed concern of a growing knife culture last year. The past week suggests those concerns were founded.

Bendigo has always had the feel of a ‘safe place’ by day. Sure there have been high-profile incidents through the years, but fear of walking the streets has never been a major issue.

Truth be told, it probably still isn’t now. When you compare the number of people out and about with the number of serious incidents that occur, it’s certainly not a city of ‘lawlessness’.

But the events of the past seven days should make the community think about where it’s heading.

Alcohol is the usual constant for many assaults and attacks. In the cases listed above, alcohol is perhaps involved in two of the five.

Boredom was one reason put forward for why people, particularly the young, are on the streets causing trouble today.

Boredom... really? If this is the issue then we do have a culture problem. If people are attacking others because there’s nothing else to do then that is a sad state of affairs.

It’s comforting to hear police say they don’t think the past week is a trend in the making.

Let’s hope they’re right.