By Jamie Salter
The Casey local government area has recorded a fall in the total amount of criminal incidents recorded over the past year thanks to the ongoing effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
According to The Crime Statistics Agency (CSA) data released on Thursday 16 June, by the year ending March 2022, Casey recorded 14,154 criminal incidents – a decrease of 12.3 per cent compared with the same time last year (where 16,137 incidents were recorded).
The decrease was driven by a reduction in breaches of chief health officer directions related to the Covid-19 pandemic.
While criminal damage offences and other thefts increased over the past year, the remaining three of the top five principal offences recorded all decreased compared with the same time last year.
In the year ending March 2022, stealing from a motor vehicle was the most recorded criminal incident in the shire (with 1,752 thefts recorded, down from 1,959 the previous year).
The second most common incident was criminal damage (with 1,201 incidents recorded this year compared to 1,074 last year) followed by breaching a family violence order (with 1,192 incidents recorded this year in comparison to 1,251), other thefts (with 1,044 incidents compared to 1,027 the previous year) and common assault (with 920 incidents compared to 959 the year prior).
Cranbourne was the most common place for crime to occur in the shire, followed by Narre Warren, Berwick, Hampton Park and Cranbourne North.
There was a total of 1,887 incidents in Cranbourne, a decrease from 2,436 recorded in 2021.
Across Victoria, the rate of recorded offences decreased by 11.9 per cent to 7,048 per 100,000 Victorians in the last 12 months, as did the number of offences, down 11.5 per cent to 470,405.
CSA chief statistician Fiona Dowsley said “changes to Covid-19 responses drove Victorian crime measures down in the last 12 months.
“Decreases in acquisitive crime such as thefts and deception have also contributed to decreases in key crime measures, following trends seen throughout the pandemic period,” Ms Dowsley said.
For more information about the latest crime data, head to crimestatistics.vic.gov.au
