The Bureau of Crime and Statistics Research (BOCSAR) shows that domestic violence charges have reduced from 573 to 516 between 2015 and 2016 in the local area command.

Of those domestic violence charges, breaching apprehended violence orders has declined from 213 to 175.

Inspector Kim Fehon has praised the work of LAC officers and the strategies they have in place.

“For domestic violence we have dedicated officers and strategies for offenders where we are pro active and check up on violence orders that are issued,” Insp Fehon said.

“The intention of that is to prevent breaches of the orders and further offences, and obviously that is having a positive affect.”

Insp Fehon said the community focus and awareness on domestic violence, and how serious it is, has assisted them.

Vehicle theft has dropped to 167 from 200 and robbery without a weapon/with a weapon that is not a firearm dropped to 44 from 58.

“We are very happy that a number of stats have decreased compared to 2015. We are always working hard to target that and we like to think our strategies are working,” she said.

“It’s also attributable to the environment around and it does ebb and flow.

“At the moment we have number of high risk offenders in custody and that has a positive affect on our crime figures, but that tends to change as they come out of custody.”

The only area that increased according to BOCSAR was stealing from a retail store.

In 2015, 201 people were charged. In 2016, that number rose to 231.

Fraud will be the next key area of focus for officers in the LAC.

“That will be a major focus of ours for the coming years. There is a strong trend for cyber crime and electronic fraud, and we will be working very hard to increase our ability to combat that,” Insp Fehon said.

“Credit card fraud, identity theft and scam email that cause people to lose money through believing those, so we will be doing a lot of preventative and community awareness about that.”