CRIME has fallen 24.5 per cent in Wyndham over the past 12 months, but theft from cars and drug use remain a problem.
Victoria Police yesterday released its official crime statistics at Werribee Police Station.
The overall number of offences in Wyndham has plummeted by 15.3 per cent from 2006/07 and it is now the top performing police service area in the state.
Under the guidance of Inspector Bill Weatherly, Wyndham experienced a 7.7 per cent reduction in robbery and a staggering 29.6 per cent decrease in assaults.
Residential burglaries also fell, by eight per cent, while damage to property dropped by 12.1 per cent.
While the theft of motor vehicles declined by 15.3 per cent, theft from cars remains an issue, with a rise in that crime category of 12.6 per cent.
The statistics showed that drug possession charges in Wyndham increased by 55.8 per cent.
Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon, who launched the statistics with Police Minister Bob Cameron, said she was pleased there had been a drop in the number of crimes reported across Victoria, particularly in Wyndham.
“Wyndham is one of the largest growth corridors in the state and to achieve such a turnaround in the numbers of reported crime is fantastic, especially when there has been such a dramatic decrease in violent offences,” she said.
But she would not be drawn when asked if Werribee required additional police.
“There were issues with police numbers here, but we have distributed resources as best we can,” Ms Nixon said.
“We are allocated two billion dollars from the budget and we have to work with what we have.
“With the resources we do have we have decreased crime from occurring.”
The overall crime rate in Victoria has now fallen 24.5 per cent since 2000/01.
Despite the decrease, police have expressed concern over the 13.9 per cent increase in robberies and the 10.7 per cent rise in theft from motor vehicles.
In particular they are concerned by the number of satellite navigation systems that have been stolen.
The latest figures show that on average nearly 19 satellite navigation systems are being stolen across Victoria every day.
This has resulted in an increase of 316 per cent since last year.
In 2006/07 there were 1,632 systems stolen which has jumped this year to a staggering 6,787.
Ms Nixon said police were concerned by an increasing trend in street robberies.
“This may be linked to the increased possession of small expensive electrical items including mobile phones and MP3 players,” she said.
“Last year we identified that robberies were an issue and as a result have increased the number of officers in various Embona Task Forces who are specifically investigating robbery offences.”
