Decrease of crime in Baw Baw police statistics

A decrease in offences across the Baw Baw police services area has bucked the trend of statewide crime statistics.

The latest statistics, released by the Crime Statistics Agency for the 12 month period ending in September, showed the total offences dropped almost one per cent compared to the previous 12 month period.

The decrease was in stark contrast to statewide trends where the average increase in offences was 4.4 per cent.

One in 17 offences in the state were breaches of COVID regulations.

It was a significant turnaround from the 8.1 per cent increase recorded for the 12-month period ending in June this year. Of the 4914 offences, almost 50 per cent resulted in arrests or offenders being charged by summons and 29 per cent were unsolved.

While the total offences were more than 800 less than last year, trends have shown increasing crime in the area since 2011 when only 2070 offences were recorded.

Breaches of family violence orders recorded the most offences with 517 offences but this was significantly down on the 637 recorded for the previous year. The number of family violence incidents increased 4.7 per cent from 802 to 840.

Thefts from vehicles also dropped 23 per cent per cent from 556 last year to 427 this year.

Two areas recorded increased offences with drug possession up 35 per cent to 395 offences and criminal damage increasing from 302 to 317 offences.

Homes were the location of almost one third of the offences with 1455 offences in homes, down from 1677 last year. However, there was a significant 64 per cent increase in the number of offences occurring in the street or on a footpath, jumping from 588 last year to 966 this year.

While welcoming the reduction in crime, Baw Baw police services area inspector Alison Crombie admitted COVID restrictions had impacted the number of offenders travelling into the area. She said with its proximity to Melbourne, many offenders travelled from southern metropolitan areas.

“They were still coming but they had to be a bit braver,” she said. Ms Crombie said residential burglaries and aggravated burglaries were lower because a lot of people were home during the period.

However, she said targeted drug operations during the period resulted in more arrests for drug possession and trafficking crimes.

Insp Crombie said population growth was the biggest factor in the long term increasing crime trends in Baw Baw.

Ten years ago in 2011, Baw Baw’s crime rate per 100,000 was 4770 compared to the state rate of 6937. In 2020, the trend has reversed with Baw Baw recording 8988 offences per 100,000 people, above the state rate of 8227.

Latrobe recorded 17,935 offences per 100,000 and Cardinia was 6614. But, Insp Crombie is hopeful increased resources at Warragul, Drouin, Trafalgar and Neerim South will contribute to lower crime trends across the area.

“We now have two vans operating on nightshift and that has helped with a lot of the offending that occurs at night.

“It means we have four members actively out there responding to incidents and targeting hotspots,” she said.

The latest crime statistics showed the majority of offences occurred in Warragul with 1757 offences. The number of offences in Drouin and Trafalgar were both more than the previous 12 month period at 1353 and 359 respectively.