Campaspe sees significant increase in alleged offender incidents

The data accounts for records, incidents and reports, with a particularly high jump in alleged offender incidents.

An alleged offender incident is an event involving one or more offences where a person, business or organisation has been linked as an alleged offender.

The most prevalent age group for alleged offender incidents was 25 to 29, with 267 for the year; males were roughly four times more likely to be involved in an alleged offender incident.

The most common of these incidents was ‘victimless crimes’ such as breaches of orders with 356, which was up from the previous year, closely followed by theft with 313, also up from 2023.

Acting Inspector Damian Keegan of Echuca Police Station suggested that while the increase in alleged offender incidents might look bad at first glance, it indicated people were coming forward about crimes in Campaspe Shire.

“If crime has increased, we would hope to see alleged offender incidents increase as well because it means we are actually apprehending the offenders to hold them to account,” he said.

“It is more of a positive if you have that number up, it shows people are coming to us and reporting criminal activity.”

Criminal incidents in Campaspe Shire were up nearly three per cent compared to the previous year, with a criminal incident rate per 100,000 population of 7515.1.

This is dramatically higher than the Victorian rate of 5658.4 for the year ending March 2024. It is also the highest criminal incident rate per 100,000 population for Campaspe since 2019 and the second highest since 2015.

Family violence also increased in Campaspe in the year ending March 2024, with 820 incidents, a three per cent increase on 2023.

Those aged 35 to 44 were the most affected, with 193 family members affected by family violence; 192 25- to 34-year-olds were also affected.

Three and a half times more women than men were affected by family violence in the year ending March 2024.

While the numbers for family violence have risen, Inspector Keegan praised victims for coming forward and reporting those incidents, to ensure police were able do their job.

“We can look at this family violence increase as a positive or a negative, we are most likely going to see a rise in reporting of family violence, being driven by people taking a stand against it,” he said.

“With family violence, people are coming forward about incidents more than they used to so that is being reported, so those stats in themselves will have an impact on the increase we are seeing.

“While it may look bad, these reports are people coming to us and saying what is happening isn’t right, and that is important.”

The total number of offences recorded for Campaspe Shire was also up six per cent compared to the previous year, the highest rate per 100,000 population since 2020.

There were 3879 offences recorded in the year ending March 2024 compared to 3659 offences recorded in the previous year.

Echuca had by far the most offences recorded in Campase Shire, with 2414, up by 238 compared to the previous year; however, these numbers can be misleading as Echuca also has the highest population of recorded areas in Campaspe Shire.

Victim reports were down by 1.3 per cent in Campaspe Shire compared to the previous year, with 2043 reports for 2024.

This meant that the person victimisation rate per 100,000 population for Campaspe was down to 3741.9, a dramatic decrease from the prior year, which saw a rate of 4026.2.

If you or someone you know needs to report an incident or crime, contact Crime Stoppers Victoria 1800 333 000