Cobram and Moira Shire have both experienced an overall significant drop in crime rates across the board, although Cobram again had the most incidents out of the shire’s four major towns, according to data released by the Crime Statistics Agency on September 15.
Total criminal incidents in Moira Shire have dropped by 14.9 per cent from 1709 in 2021 to 1455 as of the end of June.
This meant the criminal incident rate was 4769.6 per 100,000 population compared to the Victorian rate of 5177.9 per 100,000.
Cobram again had the most criminal incidents in the shire area with 440, down from 633 last year; Yarrawonga, Numurkah and Nathalia also experienced a drop in incident numbers.
However, Strathmerton saw a slight rise from 45 incidents last year to 48 this year.
The most common offence subgroup was again a breach of family violence orders with 160 incidents (compared to 178 in the previous year), followed by other theft, criminal damage, breach of bail conditions and theft from a motor vehicle.
Of these incidents, 44.6 per cent had charges laid, while 18.1 per cent had no charges laid.
About 37 per cent of incidents were recorded as being unsolved.
There were 480 family-related incidents, or 1563.5 per 100,000 population, down three per cent from 495 incidents last year.
The person most likely to be affected in a family-related incident was a woman between the age of 25-34, while the most likely other party was a male aged 35-44.
Crime rates have also decreased across the state, with the victimisation rate dropping by 4.3 per cent to 2936.1 per 100,000 victims.
Recorded offence rates decreased by 10.6 per cent to 7121.5 per 100,000 Victorians in the last 12 months, as well as offence numbers which dropped by 10 per cent to 469,506.
In the 12 months to June 30, 2022, the criminal incident rate and incident numbers both decreased by 10.2 per cent to 5177.9 per 100,000 people and 9.6 per cent to 341,367 respectively.
The Crime Statistics Agency attributes this overall drop in offences statewide to a reduction in COVID-19-related Chief Health Officer directions, down 9919 offences to 22,345 or 69.3 per cent from last year.
CSA chief statistician Fiona Dowsley said decreases in crimes like thefts and deception had also contributed to the lowest victimisation numbers and rates since 2005.
“Decreases in breaches of Chief Health Officer orders have continued to be the main driver of the decreases in key crime measures in the last 12 months from peaks in 2020. Deception and drug offences also contributed to these decreases,” she said.