The latest figures from the Crime Statistics Agency for the 12 months until March this year showed there were 7174 criminal incidents in Greater Shepparton.
This is an increase of 1.3 per cent — or 110 incidents — on the previous 12 months.
While Shepparton police Senior Sergeant Brad Fisher said it was “disappointing to see a rise” in the number of incidents, he said it was “not a rise to make you panic”.
He also said police operations targeting particular crimes such as shop thefts meant a rise in the overall figures, but they were good because it meant these people were now being caught.
The highest numbers were for breaches of family violence orders, with 731 incidents; however, this number has decreased on the previous year.
There was also a decline in the number of family violence incidents — down by 451 incidents to 2055 this year, compared to 2506 in the previous 12 months.
Sen Sgt Fisher said this was partly due to proactive police work.
He said police had conducted an operation that saw them go out and proactively visit parties to both sides of intervention orders to talk to them and make sure they had good engagement with other organisations that were there to help them to break the cycle of family violence.
“We’re really confident the proactive visits had a really big effect,” Sen Sgt Fisher said.
Criminal damage incidents were the second highest as far as the number of incidents went, with an increase to 672.
Breaches of bail conditions scored the third highest, with an increase to 661.
However, Sen Sgt Fisher said this increase wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
“It is good work of the police to identify breaches and do something about them,” he said.
“I don’t see it as a negative if we are catching them.
“While it’s disappointing to see any rise, it shows the good work by police.”
Part of these numbers came from a change in bail laws for a period of time when it was an offence to breach bail conditions.
Theft from retail stores was the fourth highest in the list of crimes in Greater Shepparton, with 549 for the year.
This was an increase on the previous year, but one Sen Sgt Fisher said was expected, as police had done some police operations focused on catching people stealing from shops throughout the year.
He also said police had done work with shop owners about reporting shop thefts, and that had also caused an increase in numbers.
“The offending has always been there, but it’s the reporting of the offending now (that has seen numbers rise),” Sen Sgt Fisher said.
He is also expecting this to continue to go up with the recent introduction of the permanent Operation Securus, which targets retail theft.
‘Other theft’ was the fifth highest when it came to criminal incidents, with an increase to 530 incidents.
Sen Sgt Fisher said there were still opportunistic thefts from cars and thefts of tools from utes and trailers in Shepparton, and he urged people to lock their cars, remove valuables from sight, and secure tools.
When it came to assault or assault-related incidents, there were 862 incidents — down marginally from 887 the previous year.
The number of stalking or harassment incidents was up by nine on the previous year, to a 10-year high of 138 incidents.
The number of burglaries decreased by 56 to 615 in the past year.
Sen Sgt Fisher said police often found repeat offenders were committing burglaries, so when a person was caught, it meant there would be a drop in the number of burglaries occurring.
Deception offence increased to 219 in the past year, compared to 153 the previous year.
Sen Sgt Fisher said in these sorts of cases, police often saw repeat offenders with multiple victims of scams.
When it came to drug offences, the number of incidents of dealing or trafficking drugs was down from 54 to 50; however, the number of incidents of cultivation or manufacturing of drugs had jumped from 24 to 41.
The instances of drug possession, however, dropped from 277 to 214.
Sen Sgt Fisher said the Shepparton police Crime Investigation Unit had been productive in catching people cultivating or manufacturing drugs, which then had a flow-on effect to the number of people charged with drug possession.
Top crimes in Greater Shepparton
Breaching family violence orders: 731
Criminal damage: 672
Breach of bail conditions: 661
Steal from retail store: 549
Other theft: 530
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