Motor vehicle theft is racing ahead in Canberra at a rate far exceeding the national average, despite a significant effort by police to rein it in.
Nearly 1500 cars were stolen over the past financial year in Canberra, the highest since 2017-18. The current ACT theft rate of 4.65 vehicles per 1000 people is double the national average.
And in the past four months alone, more than 500 number plates have been reported stolen.
ACT Policing no longer has a motor team focusing specifically on stolen cars but its latest initiative, Operation Toric (Targeting of Recidivists in Canberra) has recovered dozens of stolen vehicles and arrested more than 80 offenders.
Overall, police made 12.2 per cent fewer arrests, issued a reduced number of summonses, attended more family violence incidents and made more drug seizures during the 2021-22 financial year than in the previous reporting period.
The latest ACT Policing annual report, tabled in the Assembly on Friday, revealed Canberrans' perceptions of crime tended to to be marginally lower than the national average and yet at the same time, armed robberies were up by 29.5 per cent, business burglaries by nearly 40 per cent and motor vehicle theft by 5.4 per cent.
However, across all property-related offences, the trend headed down by 2.2 per cent across this latest reporting period.
ACT Policing is a contracted community police service from the Australian Federal Police to the ACT government, costing taxpayers about $200 million per year.
This effectively "bought" 937 staff, of which 691 were sworn officers, together with a host of "enabling" services such as forensics, professional standards and tactical teams. Employee expenses, including just over $10 million in overtime, accounted for $124.7 million of the contract.
Every year, under the purchase agreement, the national survey of community satisfaction with policing is used to determine how well ACT Policing has delivered on that contract against 21 performance measures and 17 "indicators of effectiveness".
In a COVID-warped year it only exceeded the required targets in 13 of the 21 performance measures (61 per cent) and in 11 of the 17 "indicators" (64 per cent).
In his foreword to the report, chief police officer Neil Gaughan praised his officers' "resilience, professionalism and dedication".
"They've met the challenges they faced and have at all times continued to keep our community safe," he said.
Future purchase agreements between the ACT government and the AFP will require a "statement of intent" from the chief police officer.
Response times to incidents typically resonated strongly among Canberrans and as was the case in the previous reporting period, ACT Policing didn't hit their required target in the all-important "life or death" priority one critical incident category.
Nor did they manage to answer triple-0 calls as promptly as the performance measure demands.
Police also fell away further from their prescribed target in the priority two category, which requires a response within 20 minutes. However, priority two calls for service have increased in volume significantly in recent years and the transition to a new online reporting system for matters, such as household burglaries, will affect that outcome in coming years.
Overall, Canberrans were just shy of the national average in their general levels of satisfaction with police performance over the reporting year, however, their confidence in the police was among the best in the country at 82 per cent.
There were 71 alleged complaints against ACT police over the reporting year, down from 83 the previous year. This was during a difficult period in which the so-called sovereign rights and anti-vaccination protesters were a presence in the ACT for months and their behaviour, at times, was criminal and inflammatory.
Police had to resort to using force 1253 times, with the use of firearms, batons, pepper spray, handcuffs, and Tasers all up on the previous year's cumulative 1093 instances.
We've made it a whole lot easier for you to have your say. Our new comment platform requires only one log-in to access articles and to join the discussion on The Canberra Times website. Find out how to register so you can enjoy civil, friendly and engaging discussions. See our moderation policy here.
