Narrogin police record drop in offences as new statistics reveal crime rates across southern Wheatbelt

Crime in Narrogin has dropped to its lowest point in the nine years of records being publicly available. WA Police has published online crime statistics for 18 selected offences, such as robbery, burglary, drug offences, and assault, for the 2021-22 financial year. The statistics show Narrogin recorded an 11.6 per cent drop in combined offences from 654 in the 2020-21 financial year to 578 in 2021-22 — the lowest figure in the nine years of records online. Crime peaked in 2017-18, with 1070 offences recorded. Regional WA recorded a 10.3 per cent increase in offences in the past financial year and WA recorded a 4.1 per cent increase for the same period. “Across the board, the region performed better than any other regional WA area,” Narrogin Acting Sen. Sgt Alby Vandenberg said. “We mainly look at what we call the volume crime offences — stealing, burglary, damages, stealing motor vehicles, domestic and non-domestic assault — those are the ones we look at. “When it comes to areas such as burglary, stealing and damages, we had significant drops over the last 12 months and certainly well below the five-year average.” In Narrogin, the number of stealing offences dropped by 48.4 per cent from 126 offences in 2020-21 to 65 in 2021-22. Property damage was down 21.9 per cent from 123 to 96 offences. Non-dwelling burglaries fell by 54.5 per cent from 11 in 2020-21 to five in 2021-22, while drug offences were also down 16.3 per cent from 141 in 2020-21 to 118 in 2021-22. “Drug offences we actually like to see go up. Generally with drug offences it’s something that we detect,” Acting Sen. Sgt Vandenberg said. “It’s always going to be out there so that’s going to be a case of search warrants, stopping vehicles and stopping people on the street to find drugs and the like. “But still at the same time we executed numerous misuse of drugs search warrants in the Narrogin community in the last 12 months and will continue to do so. We executed two in the last month alone.” One concerning result was an 82.7 per cent jump in non-family related assaults, from 29 in 2020-21 to 53 in 2021-22. Family assault offences stayed the same as the previous financial year at 104 offences. Home burglaries increased from 22 to 27. Sexual offences were also on the rise, increasing from nine in 2020-21 to 23 in 2021-22. Acting Sen. Sgt Vandenberg said there was a “dedicated and motivated” team at the Narrogin station. “For the main offences that affect the community like the burglary, stealing and damages, we have had some significant decreases,” he said. “That’s by and large a result of some really dedicated work here by the police station. Even though we were short-staffed for a period of time last year, we were executing search warrants, conducting quality forensics and locking up crooks. “We have a pretty dedicated and motivated team at the police station but at the same time we encourage members of the community to report incidents and, more importantly, report suspicious behaviour.” Crime was down in most towns in the southern Wheatbelt, in the past financial year, including Pingelly (135 combined offences falling to 108), Wagin (141 to 119), Williams (50 to 31), Wickepin (26 to 13) and Cuballing (22 to 16). Brookton recorded the biggest increase in the region, with combined offences jumping from 81 in 2020-21 to 137 in 2021-22 — the equal-highest figure in the nine years of records. Spikes in home burglaries (9 to 26) and property damage offences (9 to 25) were the biggest contributors to Brookton’s 69.1 per cent crime rise.