Crime keeps falling on Surf Coast

CRIME on the Surf Coast has dropped by nearly 18 per cent over the past three years, according to the latest figures from the Crime Statistics Agency (CSA).

The figures for the year ending December 31, 2017 were released last week.

Crime continues to decline in the Surf Coast Shire, dropping from 1,517 offences at the end of 2015 to 1,153 offences at the end of last year.

Property and deception offences were clearly the highest category (838) in 2017, followed by crimes against the person (149), justice procedures offences (68) and public order and security offences (41).

Across Victoria, the recorded criminal incident rate was 6,172.4 per 100,000 population, down 10.8 per cent from the previous year.

A criminal incident can have one or more offences, and the recorded offence rate was 8,186.2 per 100,000 population, down 9.9 per cent from the previous year.

There were 380,066 criminal incidents recorded by Victoria Police in the year to December 2017, down by 9.6 per cent compared to the same period last year.

This decrease is attributed to incidents with a property and deception principal offence (including arson, burglary and theft), which decreased 13.8 per cent and comprised 61.6 per cent of all recorded criminal incidents in Victoria in the last 12 months.

The Labor state government is touting the figures as the biggest drop in a decade, but the state opposition has countered by saying the total number of offences has risen by 9.7 per cent since Labor was elected to office.

According to statistics released by the Opposition, the Surf Coast Shire is one of only 14 local government areas in Victoria to record a decrease in the three years between December 2014 and December 2017.

In those three years, City of Greater Geelong offences have risen by 24.06 per cent, by 19.79 per cent in Golden Plains Shire, 13.26 per cent in Colac Otway Shire and 5.56 per cent in the Borough of Queenscliffe.