Alpine Shire has seen a sharp rise in criminal offences over the past 12 months, but it still remains one of the safest municipalities in the state. According to Crime Statistics Agency data released last week, Alpine's total criminal offences of 573 in the 12 months to June 30 represented a 17.7 per cent increase on the 487 offences recorded the previous year. Alpine's offence rate per 100,000 population of 4317.5 is still less than half the Victorian rate of 8679.6 and is the third lowest in past decade behind the COVID pandemic years of 2019 (3223.8) and 2020 (3378.3). Even with the rise, our shire still has one of Victoria's lowest crime rates, ranking 10th lowest in the state's 78 Local Government Areas, and fourth lowest in the North East behind Mansfield Shire (3290.8), Indigo Shire (3329.4) and Towong Shire (3963.2). Of the offences in the past year, police made arrests or laid charges in 52.9 per cent of cases, while 31.1 per cent remained unsolved. Bright recorded the most offences, jumping to 211 from just 92 the previous year, with offences also up in Porepunkah (42 from 37), Mudgegonga (25 from 1) and Tawonga South (21 from 4). In contrast, offences in Myrtleford dropped from 202 to 168. Breach of family violence orders were the most prolific shire-wide with 149 offences (up from 78), followed by criminal damage (50 down from 51), theft (47 up from 35), sexual offences (26 up from 11), and serious assaults (21 up from 13). Alleged offenders also rose from 162 to 167 in the past 12 months, with 149 male and 18 female - the majority being aged 45 years and over while youth offenders under 18 was less than three. The number of victims also jumped 10.7 per cent in the past year with 269 compared to 243 the year before - of which just over 50 per cent were male, with more than 60 per cent aged 45 years and above. The highest number of victims were for theft (59), assault (49), property damage (37), burglaries and break-ins (22) and sexual offences (18). Encouragingly, the number of reported family violence incidents was down 14.7 per cent on the previous year (139 compared to 163), but the vast majority of affected family members were female (99), with most aged 35 years and above. Criminal incidents down 1.4 per cent Alpine Shire's actual number of criminal incidents (can include multiple offences) totalled 355 in the 12 months to 30 June this year, representing a 1.4 per cent drop on the previous year's 360 incidents. Charges were laid in 35.2 per cent of incidents, no charges in 19.4 per cent of incidents, and 45.4 per cent of incidents were unsolved. Myrtleford again had the most criminal incidents of 120, but this was down on the previous year's 146 incidents. Bright (96), Porepunkah (26) and Tawonga South (19) all had a rise in incidents, but Mt Beauty (18) was down in the previous year. The top five criminal incidents were criminal damage (43), theft (34), breach of family violence order (31), sexual offences (20) and obtain property by deception (19).
