The release of the Otago Rural crime statistics for the 12 month period 1 July 2006 - 30 June 2007, revealed a slight rise in reported crime across the area.
Otago Rural Area Commander, Inspector Phil Jones, said that "although reported crime rose by 81 offences to 6567 offences for the period, there were some positive highlights with reductions in violent offending (down 4.8%), sexual offending (down 9.3%) and destruction of property (down 10%)."
"The amount of crime being resolved across the area was encouraging at 57.7% when compared against the national average for crime resolution of 44.7%. It was however disappointing to see a rise in the number of offences involving dishonesty which rose 4.3% over the previous year." said Inspector Jones.
Inspector Jones attributed the rise in total crime to a number of proactive initiatives that had been undertaken by frontline staff across the Otago Rural area, which had resulted in increases of reported crime for disorderly behaviour, breaches of the Sale of Liquor Act, the Arms Act and officers rigorously enforcing bail breaches.
Full details of the crime statistics are available online at www.stats.govt.nz.
For further details contact:
Inspector Phil Jones
Area Commander: Otago Rural
027 4957257
1 October 2007
ENDS