By XAVIER SMERDON
ASSAULTS and family violence cases in Wyndham have increased by 20 per cent over the last month, according to the latest Victoria Police statistics.
While overall crime actually fell by almost three per cent, police Inspector Damien Christensen said Wyndham’s rising population was contributing to an increase in some crimes.
“The continued growth in population has resulted in an increase in demand on the police service,” Insp Christensen said.
“The challenge for police in this period of growth has been to work smarter in the delivery of our service.”
The biggest drop in crime was non-residential burglary, which fell by 26.9 per cent while robberies and theft from motor vehicles fell by 13.2 per cent and 8.2 per cent respectively.
“The reduction in crime has occurred through an increase in intelligence, increasing resources to targeted crime themes such as burglary and vehicle crime, targeting recidivist behaviour and working within community locations including shopping precincts and transport hubs,” Insp Christensen said.
“Total crime rates have been affected by an increase in crimes against the person including family violence and assaults that are not family violence.
“Recent analysis of the increases reveals that we have many reasons for these increases.
“These include assaults within Port Phillip Prison reported to local police attributed to our crime figures and assaults on police or PSO members not being tolerated.”
Inspector Christensen encouraged residents to secure their vehicles and homes as unsecured property was still increasing significantly to the amount of reported crime.
