Violent crimes, including home invasions and robberies, have soared over the past year in Melton, with the state’s police minister conceding there is a long way to go before people felt “safe”.
Aggravated burglaries jumped 40 per cent in the Melton area – 110 properties were broken into while people were at home – while robberies more than doubled to 78 in the 12 months to December last year.
Figures released by the Crime Statistics Agency painted a bleak picture of a city gripped by crime, the rate of which increased by almost eight per cent, with more than 12,000 offences recorded.
Other offences driving up crime include assault (15 per cent up), sexual offences (15 per cent up) weapons (16 per cent up) and thefts (eight per cent up).
Deputy Commissioner Andrew Crisp said carjackings and home invasions were some of the biggest causes of concern for Victoria Police.
“Our members are very, very focused on actually turning around that particular type of offending,” he said.
“We are locking up these people very, very quickly, and we know that we are seeing significantly more people committing these offences being remanded in custody.”
Aggravated burglaries jumped by 38 per cent in Caroline Springs and more than doubled in postcode 3338, which includes Brookfield, Exford, Eynesbury and Melton South. Meanwhile, in Moorabool, crime increased by more than 16 per cent in the same period, with 2500 offences recorded.
Arson jumped by more than 40 per cent, property damage offences by more than 35 per cent and theft by 18 per cent.
Police Minister Lisa Neville said crime had flatlined in the December quarter, increasing only 0.1 per cent.
“There are some positive signs, but at the end of the day, we’ve still got a long way to go for people to feel safe, and that they’re not at risk of some of the crimes that we see on the TV every night,” Ms Neville said. “I’m not trying to sugarcoat this; we want to bring the [crime rate] down.
“The war on this is not over.”
The opposition accused the state government of “abandoning” community safety, with police spokesman Edward O’Donohue claiming crime increased by 20 per cent since the Andrews government came into power.
“Daniel Andrews weakened bail laws, weakened sentencing, removed move-on powers from police, closed police stations and cut frontline police numbers,” Mr O’Donohue said.
