Crime in Cardinia still dropping

By Kyra Gillespie

Crime in Cardinia continues to fall for the second year in a row, according to the latest crime statistics.
The Crime Statistics Agency released its Victorian recorded crime statistics for the year ending 31 December 2017 on Thursday 15 March.
Cardinia Local Area Commander Inspector Shane Smith has welcomed the figures, saying they reflect the hard work being done in the municipality.
“It’s really good and really pleasing to see the continuation of the trend we’ve seen in the last couple of CSA reports reflected again,” he said.
“It comes down to a lot of hard work and key partnerships within the community.
“It hasn’t all happened by accident but the challenge is to sustain it, so we’ll be looking to the future to ensure these trends continue to as they are.”
In Cardinia there were significantly fewer incidences of arson (52 per cent drop), thefts (30 per cent), robberies (28 per cent) and burglaries (23 per cent) during 2017.
Family related incidents also dropped 18.5 per cent and are the lowest they’ve been in four years.
“The Family Violence Unit has been doing a lot of work, as have our partners, to drive down family violence.
“However we need to keep a focus on family violence as it is a big issue in our community.”
Overall the crime rate in Cardinia decreased by 19.5 per cent compared to the same period last year.
Despite the overall drop in recorded offences, there were some alarming numbers in the mix.
Sexual offences increased by 6.8 per cent, as well as drug use and possession which climbed 16 per cent.
But Insp Smith says this is due to the heightened visibility of these crimes, rather than an increased number of incidences.
“This is particularly true for sexual offences because they are generally historical; most incidences of sexual assault are not reported until a number of years later,” he said.
“These numbers indicate not an increase in sexual offences themselves, but an increase in the reporting of these offences which is really positive to see.
“More awareness around the issue means more people are coming forward and reporting these offences to police.”
He says a similar logic applies for drug use and possession.
“Having more police out on the road generally means that drug offences tend to go up.
“Our guys and girls are on the frontline, getting out there and doing a lot of hard work in that space and it’s certainly paying off.”
Last year the Cardinia Police Service Area received international recognition as a World Health Organisation (WHO) Safe Community.
“That just demonstrated our commitment with our partner agencies and community to actually deliver on community safety.“
Looking ahead, police hope to become more involved in the community to address local concerns and needs.
“Police have been working on getting out in the community and speaking with the people to find out what their concerns are and addressing those.
“We want our community to have the trust and the ability to actually talk to police locally.
“We’re currently working on a community engagement program, which will be followed by a community project.
“It’s all very exciting but we can’t give away too much yet.”