Police discuss crime data revealing positive trends in assaults, property damage
Crime rates among juvenile offenders have remained stable across most categories in Liverpool, where a significant decline in theft rates has also been recorded.
Crime rates among Liverpool’s youth population have remained stable across most categories, new figures reveal.
Data from the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research show rates of assault, malicious damage to property and drug offences were stable among juvenile offenders in the two-year period from April 2017 to March 2019.
Theft rates have declined by 50 per cent each year, with 89 incidents reported in the year to March 2019, down from 178 in the 12 months to March 2018.
It represents a significant decline compared to the two-year trend across NSW, with theft among juvenile offenders decreasing by 16.7 per cent statewide.
Liverpool City Police Area Commander Superintendent Adam Whyte said there had been a decrease in retail theft, in part due to the strong partnership between local police and Westfield Liverpool security.
“We work very closely with Westfields. We’re very lucky Westfields security are one of our key stakeholders and partners,” he said.
“We continue to run operations in conjunction with them. They run a pretty tight ship in there.”
Supt Whyte said the high quality of CCTV at the shopping complex and the presence of loss prevention officers in most stores helped reduce opportunities for theft, leading to lower rates.
Proactive police engagements were “significantly up”, although they were “not necessarily targeting youth”, he said.
“I don’t think that we have a specific youth crime problem. In relation to the most recent of the BOCSAR stats, we’re fairly stable across all crime categories so I can’t say that I’m unhappy about how things are going.”
Supt Whyte said one of the issues police currently faced was theft at construction sites.
“In areas where there is a large amount of construction, we’re having … tradies’ vehicles being broken into because they may not be securing them every time they go back and forth,” he said.
“We’re finding that some of those sites, they’re losing materials.”
Supt Whyte added Liverpool’s youth liaison officers — police dedicated to engaging with youths — were “very well-known” within the community and their high level of engagement with schools and community groups helped establish positive partnerships.
Youth initiatives such as camps, school presentations and football matches are regularly organised by the youth liaison officers and teams within the command’s crime management unit.
“We have so many more resources and programs available to us to engage,” he said.
“We’ve got police dedicated to dealing with youth. We have police dedicated to engaging with schools.”
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