Recent Moira Shire crime statistics have pointed to a rise in unlawful acts, particularly theft and burglary.
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Victoria Police Inspector Luke Kirton has answered questions in relation to the spike.
What do you think is the major reason for this constant rise in crime in Moira, in particular in theft and burglaries during the past five years?
We are finding offenders are now travelling greater distances to commit crime and they are more organised and in many cases in groups. Typically in Moira we see spikes in crimes for a period where a group will come to the area, commit a lot of offences over a short period and then we will identify them and charge them and put them before the courts, which slows the offending rate down. In the last 12 months we have seen organised groups of offenders from Shepparton and Echuca undertake this type of offending. We constantly monitor crime trends and as soon as we identify a pattern in offending we roster our staff accordingly.
There have been some recent major breakthroughs by your team; do you believe this will help reverse this trend?
The police in Moira work very hard to keep the community safe and we have an excellent track record of identifying offenders quickly when they are committing crimes. With the recent addition of an extra three detectives and a further four uniform staff to Moira, this will give us even greater flexibility moving forward and also enable us to be more proactive as opposed to reactive.
When all additional staff arrive in Moira in the coming months, we will have more police in Moira than ever before and they will all be out on the road and in the community to work on reversing the increase in crime in Moira.
What can residents do to help and deter would-be thieves or those seeking to commit any other crime?
Unfortunately the days of living in the country and leaving valuables and personal items unlocked in vehicles, houses and on farms are no more. We have opportunistic thieves that will travel long distances to steal your hard-earned valuables.
Do not give them an even break; make it as difficult as possible by removing items of value from cars, park in the garage or driveway as opposed to the street, keep gates and doors closed and locked in houses and on farms. Consider things like sensor lights, alarms and CCTV cameras which are all good deterrents and will make it less likely that you will be the target of a thief.
In the near future we will be undertaking a survey in Moira that will seek feedback from the community on how they see their local police and where we can improve on the service Victoria Police provides the people in the Moira shire. Please look out for it and I encourage you to take a few minutes to participate as the feedback is important to us.
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