Crime statistics for 2020 released for Wodonga, Indigo, Wangaratta

The most comprehensive picture of the pandemic's impact on crime has been given with the Crime Statistic Agency's release of data for the year ending March 31, 2021.

Increased powers of the Victorian Chief Health Officer under the Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008 in March last year is reflected in the statistics.

Six new codes were created in VicPol's database for the issuing of on-the-spot COVID-19 penalty infringement notices, and as a result there was an increase in the number of offences recorded against the category F92 Public health and safety offences.

The 265 offences under this category recorded for Wodonga compared to zero in the previous year.

Drug possession offences also increased, from 159 to 242.

Offences overall decreased by 12.5 per cent and there were 35 fewer family violence breaches recorded.

A more comprehensive breakdown of offences in Wodonga includes two homicides, 88 serious assaults, 37 assaults on police or other emergency services, 137 sexual offences, 323 offences for criminal damage, and 183 thefts from a motor vehicle.

North East Divisional Commander Superintendent Joy Arbuthnot said a number of crimes that traditionally occur in high volumes across the North East dropped.

"Across the Wangaratta and Wodonga local government areas in the 12 months to the end of March 2021, there have been 186 fewer homes and businesses broken into, 78 fewer cars stolen and 221 fewer cars broken into," she said.

"While the COVID-19 pandemic and associated restrictions clearly had a significant impact on the rate of criminal offending throughout 2020, the majority of these offences have remained at pre-COVID levels in the early parts of 2021, despite society returning to a level of normality before this latest outbreak.

"There has been an increase in family-violence-related offending including assaults.

"While alarming, the increasing number of family violence incidents highlights increased community confidence to report these serious crimes to police and demonstrates that police act."

While criminal incidents were down in Wangaratta, the offences recorded increased by just under 27 per cent.

There were 123 more family violence breaches recorded and obtain benefit by deception offences increased by 1419 per cent (790 in March 2021 compared to 52 the previous year).

Superintendent Arbuthnot attributed a 1419 per cent rise in obtain benefit by deception charges in Wangaratta to a three-year investigation into alleged fraudulent activity by an employee of a North East travel and tourism business.

"As a result a 58-year-old Benalla woman has been charged with more than 700 obtain benefit by deception offences - she has been bailed to appear at court at a later date," she said.

Wodonga's drug possession offences increase of 52 per cent compared to Wangaratta's increase of 5 per cent.

Across Victoria, there were 37,031 alleged offender incidents related to public health (the vast majority were for breaches of CHO directions). See how many F92 offences were recorded in your LGA:

In the 12 months to March 31, the criminal incident rate decreased 5.0 per cent to 5,792.5 per 100,000 Victorians as did the number of incidents.

Despite overall decreases in criminal offences recorded, family violence-related offences increased 11.3 per cent in Victoria to 112,432 offences in the year ending 31 March 2021.

The increase was particularly driven by breaches of family violence orders (up 18.4 per cent to 53,285 offences) and family violence-related common assaults (up 5.9 per cent to 16,264 offences).

One in five offences recorded were family violence-related (21.1 per cent).

"The number of family violence-related victim reports has continued to increase, while other types of victim reports decreased over the past 12 months," CSA Chief Statistician Fiona Dowsley said.

"This increase in family violence-related victimisation has been seen for the last three years, reflecting more than pandemic-related impacts."

IN OTHER NEWS:

The CSA provides a family-violence-specific dashboard on its website.

For Indigo, Alpine, and Wangaratta, 2021 was the highest number of family violence incidents in five years.

Family violence incidents were up 32.8 per cent in Alpine Shire, 24.6 per cent in Indigo and 18.8 per cent in Wangaratta.

In Towong, incidents were up by 17 per cent compared to 2020, but were below 2017 levels.

Wodonga's family violence incidents were down by 9.3 per cent.

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