Car thefts in the ACT rose 10 per cent in the first quarter of this year with over a third of all these offences occurring in Belconnen and the inner north of Canberra.
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However, compared with the same quarterly period last year, all other crime types fell across the territory, with sexual assaults reported to police dropping to their lowest quarterly outcome in almost 10 years.
There were 302 vehicles reported as stolen across the territory over the first three months of 2024, the worst quarterly figure since Operation Toric (Targeting of Recidivist Offenders in Canberra) was initiated by ACT police in August 2022.
Operation Toric has recorded over 400 arrests - mostly related to property offences - since it began, using a dedicated intelligence arm to identify repeat offenders who are often contemptuous of police attention and have been deliberately driving at officers to avoid arrest.
Police pursuit guidelines in the ACT are highly restrictive and most recidivist car thieves know that they only have to run a red light or drive on the wrong side of the road for police to break off a chase.
Many of these car thieves - some as young as 14 - also regularly breach court-imposed conditions and curfews. The ACT remains the only jurisdiction in the country which does not permit the electronic monitoring of recidivist criminals, with a fresh "scoping study" on this capability currently underway.
Without electronic monitoring, an undermanned ACT police force has to door knock homes of known repeat offenders to check whether they are sticking to their bail conditions.
Household and commercial burglaries, which are generally closely linked to car thefts, fell by just over 22 per cent in the first quarter of this year.
Family violence-related incidents - which can include trespass, property damage and harassment - reported to police have been running at a rate of more than 1000 every quarter since late December 2022 but the number of offences which flow from those incidents have hit their lowest ebb since late 2021.
There were 687 family violence offences in the first quarter - which included 258 assaults - which is a 19 per cent decrease on the same period last year.
This is despite seven people being arrested after a spate of incidents in mid-March in which seven people were taken into custody in one busy 36-hour period, including a woman who allegedly repeatedly assaulted her male partner.
However, the number of people charged by police with family violence offences has remained relatively consistent over time, averaging around 70 per month since January last year.
