Crime has been dropping in longer-term, says law enforcement chief

CRIME rose by 14% last year, with drug offences, burglaries and criminal damage driving the increase.

There was a 14% rise in reported crime in 2017 over 2016, but head of law enforcement Patrick Rice pointed out that there has been a drop of nearly 1,000 instances during his eight years in the job. (Picture by Adrian Miller, 22582832)

The information was revealed in the 2017 Law Enforcement annual report.

Chief officer Patrick Rice said while there had been a rise in recorded crimes – from 1,389 in 2016 to 1,580 last year – in the longer term, it had been dropping.

He took on the post in 2010 and is set to step down at the end of this year.

‘If we look at 2010, the crime figures have come down from 2,572 to 1,580 in 2017,’ Mr Rice said.

‘So over that eight-year period, crime has continued to fall, but last year there was a modest increase of about 200 crimes.’

One of the big rises was in drug cases, with 162 recorded crimes in 2017, compared with 103 the year before. The majority of the 2017 seizures were for the class B drugs cannabis resin and herbal cannabis.

There was also a big rise in burglaries, from 43 on dwellings and non-dwellings in 2016 to 95 last year – a 120% rise.

Mr Rice said it was hard to draw trends from the Guernsey figures because a few individuals could skew the figures.

‘One individual did 14 burglaries, so you can see the impact of that,’ he said.

‘But when we were looking at the burgling of dwellings, in 2010 there were 82 and last year there were 40. So there is still a downward trend.’

He said it was important to put across that Guernsey was a safe place to live, especially compared with the UK, which is struggling to cope with growing crime figures.

He added that unlike the UK, where stretched police forces have screened out some crimes due to a lack of resources, all crimes reported in Guernsey were investigated.

He also confirmed that after he leaves the force, he plans to stay in the island.

In Alderney, 35 crimes were reported. The biggest issue was criminal damage and arson, with 13 cases reported.