The latest crime statistics reveal offences including theft from retail premises, car theft and related offences and house break-ins have continued to decline in South Australia.
The September rolling year crime statistics reveal property related crimes have decreased by six per cent, continuing a downward trend recorded for the past 13 reporting periods.
The crime statistics also reveal while offences against the person increased by two per cent in the period, there were significant decreases in several offence categories.
Acting Assistant Commissioner (Metropolitan Operations Service) John De Candia said reductions in many offence categories were due to the continued targeting of recidivist offenders who were responsible for a significant number of offences.
"The reductions in many property offence categories are directly attributable to the work of frontline officers involved in proactive, targeted policing activities,'' he said.
"In many cases individual offenders are responsible for literally dozens of offences. We will continue to identify and target these offenders.''
In a recent case a Novar Gardens man, 39, was arrested on 5 November after he was found in possession of house breaking implements at Glenelg.
The man was arrested and charged with going equipped, possess a prohibited weapon and breach of bail.
The arrest followed a Western District Volume Crime Section investigation into a series of more than a dozen break-ins to business premises between 16 September and 4 November.
When police searched the arrested man's home, they located items stolen during the break-ins and he was further charged with four counts of serious criminal trespass, four counts of theft, four counts of breach of bail and possession of a dangerous article.
The rolling year figures reveal house break-ins decreased by nine per cent in the period – from 6,148 to 5,585 offences – or 563 fewer incidents reported.
Non-residential break-ins also reported a nine per cent decline – from 3,724 to 3,376 offences – or 348 fewer incidents.
Theft from retail premises declined by 14 per cent in the reporting period – from 25,935 to 22,316 offences – or 3,619 incidents. Fuel theft is now recorded in this category under updated recording and reporting changes.
Motor vehicle theft and related offences decreased by five per cent in the period – from 15,472 to 14,692 offences. Theft from a motor vehicle is now included in this category.
The rolling year figures show robbery offences have decreased by five per cent, murder offences decreased by 62 per cent, attempted murder increased by 20 per cent, assault related offences increased by two per cent and sexual offences declined by one per cent.
On 1 July SAPOL updated crime recording and reporting systems to align with a new crime coding change required by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
This has resulted in changes to the look of the published crime tables that include Person and Property offences and the display of other offences categories to ensure a nationally consistent approach to reporting crime. However, ABS counting rules have not changed.
