THE NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR) has released their quarterly update on crime in the Port Stephens region for 2022.

Over the past two years, the Hunter Valley region (excluding Newcastle) has seen a decrease of 1.4 percent regarding violent crimes – one of only two statistical areas which saw a decrease.

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The Port Stephens Local Government Area saw no significant changes to levels of any type of offence in the two year period to March 2022.

Port Stephens decreased the ratio of NSW rate of criminal incidents per 100,000 population for the robbery offence to just a ratio of just 0.4 offences to every 100,000 for the region.

Neighbouring regions including Newcastle and the MidCoast LGAs saw increases in the same offence category of 2.6 and 0.8 respectively.

In the twelve months to March 2022, there were the following number of offences reported: 243 domestic violence related assaults, 260 non-domestic violence related assaults, 93 sexual assaults, 100 other sexual offences, six robberies, 139 break and enter dwellings, 101 break and enter non-dwellings, 86 motor vehicle thefts, 197 steal from motor vehicles, 96 steal from retail stores, 329 other stealing offences, 498 malicious damage to property offences and one murder.

These statistics were fairly consistent with the reported offences of the twelve months prior, with domestic violence and non-domestic violence related assaults, sexual assaults, motor vehicle thefts, steal from motor vehicles, other stealing offences and malicious damage to properly decreasing in the March 2021- March 2022 reporting period.

State-wide, these crime statistics showed that many high-volume crimes remained low in the first quarter of 2022 on the back of large reductions in offending during the pandemic.

Between January and March 2022, police recorded 24 percent fewer property offences than the same period two years ago (January to March 2020).

Jackie Fitzgerald, Executive Director at BOCSAR, said it was surprising that stealing offences were still so low in 2022 given behaviour patterns in the community had largely returned to normal.

“A number of factors suspected to be keeping property crime low during the pandemic are no longer in play, such as mobility restrictions and access to government stimulus money.

“It seems likely that property crime will start to increase over the coming year but, fortunately, this is taking longer than expected,” Ms Fitzgerald said.

By Tara CAMPBELL