The amount of recorded crime resolved in Southland increased by 1.9% in the year to 30 June 2009, with 54.5% of recorded crime being resolved during the year.
The overall recorded crime rate rose 8.5% in the year to 30 June 2009. Recorded offences rose from 9,946 to 10,788.
Offences categorised as violent continued to increase from last year, with 203 more violent offences compared with the year to 30 June 2008. This was driven mainly by an increase in offences categorised as serious assault (+72), grievous assaults (+41), and minor assaults (+38).
Southland Acting Area Commander, Inspector Lane Todd, said police in Southland were adopting a proactive strategy and employing a whole of policing approach to identify crime trends, use intelligence and deploy to risk.
"In Invercargill we've recently undertaken a three-week operation focussing on inner city violence and alcohol offending. This resulted in a decrease in reported serious assaults and family violence incidents for the period of the operation. Police plan to conduct several similar operations this year," he said.
The increase in violent offences was also driven by an increase in recorded family violence, which rose by 25%.
"The results are consistent with the national picture. Many people may now be reporting to police family violence offences which in the past may not have come to police attention. What these figures do tell us is that police are dealing with more matters as family violence offences," said Inspector Todd.
Offences categorised as drugs and anti-social offences continued to increase from last year, driven mainly by a 62% rise in cannabis offences from 583 to 942.
"Drug offending remains a major focus for police in Southland. Many offenders involved in drug use are also involved in property offences; therefore drug offenders continue to be a target for police," Inspector Todd said.
Two factors dominated the increase in recorded dishonesty offences - burglary and theft offences. These increased by 11% and 8% respectively.
However, car conversion offences decreased by 6.4% over the same period with 42 fewer offences.
Inspector Todd said dishonesty offending, including property offences, continues to be a key focus for Southland Police.
"We've already seen a decrease of 24% for the first part of this year for burglary and dishonesty offences," said Inspector Todd.
The increase in property damage offences was driven mainly by wilful damage, which increased by 181 offences from last year.
Invercargill's Community Policing Group had been tasked with this type of offending, and work was already underway with the Invercargill City Council, community patrols and Maori wardens to develop proactive strategies to reduce it, Inspector Todd said.
The 66% decrease in administrative offences was driven mainly by failure to answer bail offences which decreased by 127 and miscellaneous offences against Justice which dropped by 99 offences.
ENDS