Crime falls along the Surf Coast

CRIME is on the decline in four Surf Coast towns, with offences over the 12 months to September dropping or steady in almost all categories.

Inspector Peter Seel and Senior Sergeant Robert Wilby discussed the latest quarterly figures from the Crime Statistics Agency at a crime prevention forum at Grant Pavilion on Tuesday night.

The total number of offences overall for the four towns in the Surf Coast Cluster – Anglesea, Lorne, Torquay and Winchelsea – has dropped from 1,454 to 1,206.

“It’s a really good news story for the Surf CoastCluster,” Inspector Seel said. “Compared to other areas, that’s fantastic.”

The three offences with the highest number of recorded offences were again theft, burglary/breaking and entering and property damage, and all of these fell.

The number of thefts (including theft of motor cars, theft from motor cars and other theft) is down significantly from 589 to 496, property damage has dropped from 135 to 105, and burglary/breaking and entering dropped from 228 to 220.

“We’ve done a lot of work around trying to educate people to lock their cars to make sure they don’t leave valuables in their cars that people can see,” Inspector Seel said.

“People are buying locks to lock onto their car when they’re going surfing.”

Breaches of orders is the category with the next-largest drop, from 94 to 46. Inspector Seel said most of those offences would be breaches of intervention orders, but police had also been monitoring people who were out on bail and had to comply with conditions.

Assault and related offences has dropped from 101 to 83. Inspector Seel said the majority of those offences would be family violence, so it was an issue that police needed to keep addressing.

Drug use and possession is up from 32 to 35, and drug dealing and trafficking is up from three to seven.

Inspector Seel said road policing would ramp up in response increasing amount of traffic on local roads over summer, with extra police to come down and assist. He said he would continue to run the forums every three to six months, with the next possibly held in March or April.

For the full statistics, head to the website crimestatistics.vic.gov.au.