Fraud up, but crimes in Fife show fall

Crime figures released today show there has been a significant reduction in offences of dishonesty in Fife.

Break-ins to houses, vehicle crime and shoplifting have also gone down - but there has been a jump in fraud causes, many of them the result of online scams.

The figures cover April 2019 to the end of March this year - and don’t take account the impact of the current lockdown.

But the reductions were welcomed by the man in charge of policing in Fife.

Chief Superintendent Derek McEwan, Divisional Commander, said: “I am really encouraged by the Q4 figures, which show that our considerable efforts to tackle various local policing priorities are paying dividends.

“With housebreaking, vehicle crime, theft and shoplifting having all fallen through our Operation Principle activities, I hope this sends a very clear message that the Kingdom is not a soft target for acquisitive crime.”

The figures were contained in Police Scotland’s performance report.

https://www.fifetoday.co.uk/news/crime/two-arrested-after-incident-draws-heavy-police-presence-2863759

https://www.fifetoday.co.uk/news/crime/five-arrests-some-people-fife-break-lockdown-rules-2863669

Overall housebreaking is down by almost four per cent, while there have been 23 fewer break-ins to homes, equating to a 7.4 per cent decrease. Detection rates for all housebreaking offences have risen by almost 12 percentage points.

There were 89 fewer vehicle crime offences reported, including thefts from cars and vans and break-ins to vehicles; a drop of over 12 per cent.

Incidents of theft and shoplifting went down by 6.6 per cent and 14.3 per cent respectively.

One area that has, however, seen a considerable rise in recorded crimes is fraud, which has risen by 212 reports, or 38 per cent in the past 12 months.

Overall violence was up by 64 incidents, but the data includse 135 charges under the new Domestic Abuse Scotland Act, which created a single offence covering the full range of abusive behaviours. If that was not considered, overall violent crime dropped by 14 per cent.

The rise in fraud offences is mirrored nationally, with recorded incidents up by 31 per cent -0 many of them cyber-enabled.

Anti-social behaviour fell by 10 per cent, or 2561 reports.

There were also 179 fewer incidents of vandalism and 41 less fire-raising reports – reductions of 6.5 per cent and 27.3 per cent respectively.

There were also 158 fewer reports of missing people, which is a reduction of four per cent.

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Allan Crow, Editor, Fife Free Press