Detection rates rise as crime level falls
Graeme Kinmond
THE amount of crime being recorded in the Levenmouth area has dropped by eight per cent over the past year.
This equates to 263 less offences reported across the area and follows an announcement from Fife police that crime in the region has been reduced overall by 4.3 per cent.
Levenmouth’s figures were released by the area’s chief inspector, Graeme Kinmond, at a briefing held in the force base at Sea Road, Methil on Friday afternoon.
Members of the public, councillors and other police officers were there on the day to hear Chief Inspector Kinmond describe how the figures had been achieved, and what the force’s local priorities would be for the coming year.
He said: “We still have a high volume of youth offending but have made significant in-roads into that by targeting the most prominent offenders by working with schools.
“We will continue to focus on reducing violent offending and keep a high visibility presence in Leven town centre to deter anti-social behaviour and shoplifting.”
Levenmouth is regarded as having one of the higher levels of violent crime figures in Fife, however the force has reported a drop of 33 serious offences in the past year to 57.
Chief Insp Kinmond was please to confirm that all incidents have been detected.
“We will continue to work in partnership with others to prevent violent crime because it’s key that we now keep our 100 per cent detection rate,” said the chief inspector to the Mail after the presentation.
“We’ll do that by keeping a high visibility policing presence through operations Bodie and Doyle.
“It’s also key in this area that we deal with our youngsters as soon as we can and help them to get back on track.”
Across other crime categories, it was reported that the community vandalism team has now become well established, with officers delivering a 45 per cent detection rate for this sort of offence which is traditionally difficult to detect.
Reported theft related offences remained relatively static in Levenmouth over the past year, increasing by 12 crimes.
The detection rate for these offences rose by 15 per cent to 48 per cent.
“The combined efforts of the community crime team, CID, community and response officers has realised a detection rate that we will make every effort to maintain and better,” said Chief Insp Kinmond.
“Recorded anti-social behaviour also reduced by 29 per cent, or 516 offences, and my officers issued 211 fixed penalty tickets for public order or alcohol offences.
“This is a strong message that we are pro-actively enforcing anti-social behaviour legislation.”
The chief inspector added that nipping this kind of offending in the bud early on may go some way to preventing a potential serious violent assault taking place later on in the evening. Community engagement meetings will continue to be held across the Levenmouth area on a bi-monthly basis.
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Weather for Kirkcaldy
Sunday 19 May 2013
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