Crime lowest in Stourbridge for ten years (From Stourbridge News)

Crime lowest in Stourbridge for ten years

6:40pm Tuesday 8th January 2013 in Local

STOURBRIDGE has recorded the lowest annual crime levels in a decade, the town’s top cop has said.

Latest figures show the number of recorded incidents of criminal activity have fallen by more than ten per cent in the last year - and by almost 60 per cent over the last ten years.

From January to December 2012 there were 3,312 crimes logged compared to 3,688 in 2011; and since 2002, which recorded 5,817 incidents, there has been a 58.5 per cent drop in crime across all seven wards in the Stourbridge policing area.

Stourbridge Police Inspector Dez Lambert said: “2012 has been a great year for Stourbridge. "

He said robust policing, successful management of offenders, crime prevention techniques and neighbourhood policing had all helped to reduce crime levels year on year but he said the support of the public also played a huge part.

Within the overall crime picture there were significant falls in the number of robberies, violent crimes and house burglaries committed across Stourbridge in 2012 compared to the previous year.

Robberies plummeted from 89 incidents in 2011 to 48 in 2012 (a 46 per cent drop), violent crimes dropped from 779 incidents in 2011 to 715 in 2012 (down 8.2 per cent), and house burglaries fell from 267 in 2011 to 235 in 2012 (a 12 per cent reduction).

Insp Lambert added: “It’s an excellent end to 2012 - now our work starts all over again. There are still a lot of victims of crime out there so we never take our foot off the pedal.”

The inspector said the advent of social media had also helped in the fight against crime by boosting communication between the public and the police in Stourbridge who post regular updates about issues and initiatives on their Twitter site twitter.com/WMPStourbridge