Crime reduction

Break and enters from a dwelling reduced by 14 incidences to 19 in 2021, and break and enters of a non-dwelling reduced by 11 to just seven in the reporting period.

The other significant decrease was in stealings from a motor vehicle, which dropped from 35 in the 12 months to September 2020, to 20 in the 12 months to September 2021.

The only other decrease among the 13 crime categories was in domestic violence assault, but the change was minimal.

There were 64 cases reported to September 2021, and 56 in the 12 months previous.

No murders were recorded in either the 2020 or 2021 reporting period, and non-domestic violence related assaults remained unchanged, with 51 incidences in both reporting years.

While there were increased incidences in six crime categories, none was by more than six incidences.

There were nine sexual assaults reported in the Edward River region in the 12 months to September 2021, compared to three the previous year.

Also increasing by six was the number of malicious damage to property reports, which numbered 115 in the 2021 reporting period.

Sexual touching, sexual act and other sexual offences increased by five, to 10 incidents by September 2021.

The other three crime categories increased by only one incident each — robbery (to one incident in 2021), motor vehicle theft (to five) and steal from retail store (to 11).

Edward River is showing a similar trend to the entire Murray region, where all stealing offences saw a reduction — with the exception of robbery which increased by three year-on-year.

The most significant regional crime reductions were in stealing from a motor vehicle (down 165 to 681 incidents in Murray to September 2021), other stealing offences (down 159 to 764) and break and enter dwelling (down 142 to 412).

The largest increase in the Murray region was in the non-domestic violence assault category, which increased by 63 to 600 reported incidents to September 2021.