By DANE LILLINGSTONE
THE annual Queensland Police Service’s Statistical Review has been released showing an overall 3.9 per cent increase in crime across the Darling Downs.
The biggest single increase of crime in the district was a 25.4 per cent rise in robbery offences.
Darling Downs District Officer Acting Superintendent Ben Marcus said break-ins tend to be opportunistic in nature.
“The overall crime rate of offences against the person decreased during 2014/’15 with assaults decreasing by 3.6 per cent, robbery offences increasing by 25.4 per cent and other offences against the person including kidnapping and abduction offences increasing by 6.3 per cent,” Supt Marcus said.
“A lot of break-ins are opportunistic and are preventable.”
However, Warwick Senior Sergeant Jamie Deacon said any rises were not necessarily a bad thing with Warwick and the Southern Downs being grouped into a much larger district.
“I don’t have an issue with our stats, our stats are actually fairly good,” Sgt Deacon said.
“These stats include proactive police work. It means our staff are being proactive and finding offences like drugs.”
Out of the local stats included in the robbery numbers, Warwick only had two robbery offences, and both were solved.
He also said that media campaigns could sometimes play a part in raising crime rate statistics. He used domestic violence as an example and said that an increase did not necessarily equate to a ‘bad’ rise in crime.
“The recent media interest in domestic violence that encourages people to report domestic violence – that’s a good thing,” Sgt Deacon said.
“It means people in the public are willing to report offences they might otherwise not, which shows an increase.
“There is a corresponding increase in breaches of domestic violence being reported and there is a corresponding increase in assaults. There has been an increase in breaches recorded.
“People who are victims of domestic violence are willing to report breaches – we are happy with that.
“The most common crime category that links to domestic violence is assault.”
All percentages used in the statistics relate to the number of reported offences per 100,000 people.
