RESIDENTIAL burglaries and robberies continue to be a major problem for Wyndham police.
The latest police crime statistics show an almost 30per cent increase in residential burglaries in Wyndham last year as compared to the previous year.
The area also recorded a 34per cent increase in robberies – 105 last year as compared to 78 reports made between January and December 2010.
Former Inspector Bill Weatherly, who left Wyndham police on Friday to take up a position with Geelong police, acknowledged residential burglaries continued to be an issue for the area. But he said the burglary unit was working hard to combat them.
He said about 50per cent of Wyndham’s burglaries were on houses under construction.
As reported by the Weekly, the burglary unit recently held a forum with developers to discuss ways to improve security at new developments.
“Because [Wyndham] is so big, the offenders might target an area for a couple of days and then move on to another area. We are coming up with intelligence to combat that.”
Inspector Weatherly said Wyndham also had a problem with graffiti.
About half of the property damage reports made to Werribee police in January related to graffiti. It follows a 14per cent increase in property damage last year as compared to the previous year.
“[January] was a bad month for us,” Inspector Weatherly said.
“I wish more people would report incidents of graffiti to the police. Property damage continues to rise and people just accept it. As a community we can’t accept it.
“The offenders think it is OK to graffiti on fences. They don’t know the impact it has on the owners and the community as a whole.”
Wyndham also recorded an increase in drug offences over the past year, which Inspector Weatherly attributed to more offenders being caught.
He said police were finding many hydroponic set-ups, but the problem was not specific to Wyndham.
Assaults fell by almost 2per cent last year.
Inspector Weatherly said crimes against the person was down 4per cent.
He cited the recent arrest of a group of men believed to be responsible for a spate of attacks on taxi drivers as an example of the work police were doing to reduce assaults.
However, he said police had to continue to come up with good strategies to further reduce the assault rate.
