THE NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research has released their quarterly update on crime in the MidCoast 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 MidCoast Local Government Area saw no significant changes in the number of domestic violence and non-domestic violence related assaults, sexual assaults or stealing offences, however there were significant increases to several offences over the past two years.

These included: break and enter dwelling (increase by 35.9 percent), break and enter non-dwelling (increase by 83.7 percent) and motor vehicle theft (increase by 20.8 percent).

The MidCoast LGA also displayed an increase to the following ratios of NSW rate of criminal incidents per 100,000 population: break and enter dwelling (increase to 2.4), break and enter non-dwelling (increase to 3.9) and ‘other’ stealing offences (increase to 2.1).

In the twelve months to March 2022 there were 551 domestic violence related assaults, 419 non-domestic violence related assaults, 124 sexual assaults, 150 other sexual offences, 15 robberies, 492 break and enter dwellings, 322 break and enter non-dwellings, 186 motor vehicle thefts, 348 steal from motor vehicles, 212 steal from retail stores, 852 other stealing offences, 864 malicious damage to property offence and one murder offence reported to authorities.

These were significantly higher reports than the period of twelve months to March 2021, which saw over a hundred less domestic violence related offences reported, almost half the number of break and enter non-dwellings offences reported and over 200 less ‘other’ stealing offences reported.

The state-wide average showed that many high-volume crimes such as break and enter dwellings (down 27 percent) and non-dwellings, (down 23 percent) steal from motor vehicle (down 24 percent) and steal from retail store (down 21 percent) were significantly reduced at a state-wide level, however the MidCoast LGA was a distinct outlier to these statistics.

By Tara CAMPBELL