While Victorians enjoy their holidays, burglars are stepping up their efforts rather than taking any time off, with thieves using the time residents are away to break into homes unnoticed.
In three of the past five years, January has been the worst month for home break-ins, a Fairfax Media analysis of crime statistics has found.
And over the past 14 years, a total 41,196 burglaries have been recorded in January, more than in any other month, with 8 per cent more burglaries carried out in January than the monthly average.
Victoria Police’s Community Safety Group Superintendent Tim Hansen said residential burglaries tended to increase over the holiday period, and January was a “particularly problematic” month.
Superintendent Hansen said these crimes were largely opportunistic and could have been avoided.
“Whilst a lot of people take holidays over the summer break, a lot have become complacent when it comes to their home security,” he said.
“If you’re planning to go away, the key is to make it look like someone is home – get your neighbours to collect the mail and bring in the bins, close the curtains and hang some old clothes on the line,” he said.
He said police were targeting thieves with burglary investigation teams based in areas where the crimes were expected to take place.
An analysis of crime data last year found the suburbs of Williams Landing, Ardeer and Heidelberg West had Melbourne’s highest burglary rates.
Insurance Council of Australia spokesman Cameron Fuller said while burglaries around January were predominantly carried out by opportunistic thieves, professional criminals were also on the prowl.
“If they know they are going to be undetected for quite some time they will do their best to clear the property out of anything of resale value, anything from carpets and white goods to jewellery and electrical items,” he said.
“If there is a house that is clearly unoccupied and no one is around who is going to stop them?”
He said people should also be careful with posting about travel plans on social media, as there had been cases where thieves had used this information to carry out burglaries.
In the past year, almost $96 million worth of goods have been stolen in residential burglaries. In about one in 10 cases where items were stolen from an address, more than $50,000 worth of goods were snatched.
But overall, the number of residential burglaries recorded each year has remained relatively stable over the past 10 years, averaging at about 29,000 a year.
This story first appeared in The Age
