Published: Friday, 29th January, 2010 12:00pm

Offaly's crime rate drops by 11% in '09

by Karen Downey

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Offaly's crime rate has dropped by 11.3% in a year, the latest figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) have revealed.

The CSO released the crime figures for the final quarter of 2009 yesterday (Thursday), which revealed that the crime rate dropped by 11.3% in the Laois/Offaly Garda Division in 2009, when compared to 2008. In total 6,973 crimes were recorded in the Laois/Offaly division last year, compared to 7,866 in 2008, which represents a drop of 893 crimes.

The biggest drop for the Garda division was the rate of homicide offences, which dropped by 80% last year, from five murders in Laois/Offaly in 2008 to just one during 2009.

There was also a significant drop in offences relating to dangerous or negligent acts, which take in dangerous driving causing serious bodily harm, driving or being in charge of a vehicle while over the legal alcohol limit, abandoning a child, child neglect and cruetly and endangering traffic offences. The rate of dangerous or negligent acts dropped by 37% over the course of the year, from 602 in 2008 to 379 last year.

Controlled drugs offences were also on the slide, dropping by 23.2% from 822 in 2008 to 631 last year, while there was a slight decrease in public order and other social code offences, which dropped from 1,299 in 2008 to 1,267 last year, a drop of 2.4%.

However, there as an increase of 6.7% in the number of theft and related offences recorded in the Laois/Offaly division in 2009 when 1,849 such offences were recorded, compared to 1,732 the year before.

The number of weapons and explosives offences was also on the rise last year when 116 such offences were recorded, compared to 85 in 2008, an increase of 36.4%.

Robbery, extortion and hijacking offences rose by 65% over the same period, from 23 in 2008 to 38 last year.