Victoria crime rates report encouraging but battle far from won

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDOct 28 2010

Alcohol related crimes may have reduced but have not totally gone say Victorian Police. Reports released this September showed that while CBD assaults dropped 14 per cent overall crime across the state is down 3.8 per cent compared to the same period last year. According to Deputy Commissioner Kieran Walshe, “No I don't think we've won the war but could I say we might have won the first battle. But I think there's some more battles to go before we get there.” He added that significant reductions were achieved in areas such as property damage (down 9.7 per cent), home burglaries (down 8 per cent), and motor car theft (down 11.4 per cent). Other crime rates fell too including homicide (13.3 per cent), rape (3.6 per cent), sex assault (non rape, 1 per cent), robbery were where knife was produced (12.8 per cent) and assault where knife was produced (3.5 per cent).

The Victoria Police started its Safe Streets operation in October 2007 as city violence spiralled out of control on weekends. Overall, assaults increased 0.5 per cent in Victoria because of a surge of family violence offences, up 7.7 per cent. Alcohol related crimes also shot up during the festive season. For the next months Mr Walshe said officers from the Operations Response Unit would be supporting regional officers and transit police to conduct large operations across the state, focusing on knife crime, street robberies and road fatalities.

The data also shows that the overall crime rate has now fallen by 29.9 per cent since 2000-2001. The Victoria Police statement said a number of regional and suburban areas had also achieved “significant reductions in crime,” including Monash, Melbourne, Yarra, Maribyrnong, Cardinia, Casey, Dandenong and Frankston.