Police figures show rise in drug and sex crimes

Despite the high profile Operation Torus aimed at tackling street level dealing, drug crime sky rocketed by more than 31% in the Craigavon area. However detection levels slumped by 3.2%.

Indeed drug trafficking crime has more than doubled in the past year up from 32 recorded offences to 70. Again detection rates for this has plummeted by 17%.

None trafficking drug offences also rose by 16.6% up from 193 in 2011/12 to 225 last year. Detection rates rose slightly by 0.4%.

In E district which includes Craigavon sex offences rose by a massive 26%. Overall the average rate of sex crime across NI was 6% but in Craigavon it was double at 12%.

In the Craigavon area, there were 98 recorded sex offences in 2011/12 and 110 last year with a 1.7% increase in detection.

As for more serious sexual crime, it rose by 1.1% with 91 recorded last year and 90 the previous year. There was also a rise in detection by 3.1%.

And other sex offences were on the rise with 19 recorded last year compared to 8 the previous year. But detection rates fell to almost 16% compared to 25% on the previous year.

Overall, crime is down by 7.2% in Craigavon however the detection rate is also down slightly.

Property crime was by far the biggest problem in the borough with 2,751 incidents recorded last year. This was down on last year by 11.9% but stealing vehicles was on the rise up 20% on the previous year.

Fraud and forgery offences shot up by more than 24% with 184 incidents recorded last year. Detection in this sector also fell by more than 9%.

Criminal damage offences were down by more than 25% and detection rates rose, albeit by just 0.2%. There were 964 incidents in the past year compared to 1,295 the year before.

Violent attacks in Craigavon were down by just over 5% with 1,6550 recorded last year compared to 1,742 the previous year. Detection levels were also down by four per cent.

The number of robberies was also on the decrease with a drop of almost 6%.

Detections for interfering with a vehicle dropped by more than 44% with just an almost 6% detection rate last year compared to 50% the previous year.