By Alesha Capone
CRIMES recorded in Wyndham have increased nine per cent across the past 12 months, with assaults, robberies, residential burglaries and sexual assaults all registering higher rates than last year.
Annual crime statistics released by Victoria Police reveal there were 10,542 crimes recorded in Wyndham during the 2010-2011 financial year, compared to 9651 within 2009-2010.
However homicides fell from 12 to eight, rapes from 52 to 39, aggravated burglaries from 71 to 49 and car thefts from 423 to 372, from the previous year’s figures.
Drug cultivation, manufacturing and trafficking offences also decreased from 148 to 121, and drug use and possession dropped from 225 to 194.
But sexual assaults increased from 86 to 147, robbery 65 to 117, residential burglaries 1139 to 1378, arson from 85 to 108, property damage 1260 to 1318, thefts from motor vehicle 1387 to 1527 and ‘behaviour in public’ charges 36 to 61.
While assaults rose from 868 to more than 1020, domestic violence accounted for around two thirds of this figure, according to police.
Wyndham’s Police Inspector Bill Weatherly said robberies, residential burglaries and assaults were the major categories driving the crime increase.
He said the area’s fast-growing population was also a significant factor in the higher crime rate.
“Population growth brings new housing estates, and houses under construction are soft targets for criminals,” he said.
“Our robbery problem is mainly youth victims with younger offenders, on many occasions the victims are ‘soft targets’.”
Insp Weatherly said the Wyndham Burglary Unit, which was set up in February to crack down on the high number of residential burglaries within the municipality, “has been a success story for local policing”.
The unit has made 86 arrests for burglary offences and in July, recorded the lowest number of residential burglaries in Wyndham across the past 12 months.
“Recently they arrested a ring of offenders and recovered over $50,000 in property, property that was returned to the rightful owners,” Insp Weatherly said.
Insp Weatherly said the many arrests made by the Burglary Unit officers were males aged between 16 and 20.
On 25 August, the Burglary Unit executed a search warrant in Hoppers Crossing and arrested a 24-year-old male.
He was charged with nine burglaries, nine thefts and one charge of possessing a drug of dependence.
