General News
24 June, 2023
Crime slashed in Hindmarsh
Police - and the community - are doing something right in Hindmarsh Shire: crime across the municipality has been slashed by just on one-third in only 12 months. Bucking the statewide trend of a slight rise overall, Hindmarsh recorded the...
Police - and the community - are doing something right in Hindmarsh Shire: crime across the municipality has been slashed by just on one-third in only 12 months.
Bucking the statewide trend of a slight rise overall, Hindmarsh recorded the second-biggest decrease in criminal incidents year-on-year according to figures to the end of March released by Australia's Crime Statistics Agency.
While Victoria as a whole experienced a rise of 5.6 per cent, four of the top five centres in Hindmarsh – Nhill, Dimboola, Jeparit and Kiata – all reduced the number of times police had to be called.
In Dimboola, criminal incidents fell from 92 in the period April 2021–March 2022 to 71 in April 2022–March 2023.
In Nhill, incidents were also cut to 71, from an previous total of 107.
Jeparit and Kiata showed significant improvement, from 29 to 20 and from 17 to 9 respectively.
Rainbow was the only town to have an increase, with 23 incidents as opposed to 22 in 2021–22.
The 31.9 per cent drop in Hindmarsh is second only to that of Queenscliffe Shire, where incidents were cut by 55.1 per cent, albeit on much lower numbers.
In Hindmarsh, more than half of the 205 criminal incidents investigated by police occurred in a house (103).
Other locations included on a street/lane/footpath (17), at a service station (11), on a farm (6) or on parkland or a reserve (5).
Theft (28), criminal damage (26) and breaching a family violence order (FVO) (22) were the top three offences, followed by common assault (11) and stealing from a motor vehicle (8).
The only one of these five categories to have seen an increase was FVO breach, which grew from 19 to 22.
Police charged an offender or offenders in 32.7 per cent of cases; 22.4 per cent of the time no charges were laid.
In all, 44.9 per cent of cases were unsolved.
By comparison, two of Hindmarsh's neighbours had minimal rises in crime: 2.2 per cent in Horsham Rural City and 2 per cent in Yarriambiack Shire.
Across Victoria, 361,140 individual incidents were documented – up by 5.6 per cent from 341,098 a year earlier.