Tasmania Police has shed light on an apparent crime spike across its Deloraine division.
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The department's latest corporate performance report suggested offences had increased in the division by 17.5 per cent in November last year, jumping from 240 offences to 282.
But Northern District Commander Brett Smith explained the figure related to individual offences, rather than incidents.
"There can be one crime, in which four offences are recorded," he said.
"In Deloraine, we have had increases, but sporadic increases where we have a small number of offenders committing a higher number of offences in a shorter period of time.
"With a small population and low levels of crime any change in the raw crime figures result in a large statistical difference, whether that be positive or negative."
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Those increases included a rise in property offences, home and business burglaries, property damage, and stolen cars. However serious crime remained low. The report also suggested police were taking longer to arrive at the scene in the Deloraine division, with the response time for high-priority calls jumping from 26 minutes to 44 minutes. No formal complaints have been made to police about their response times.
Commander Smith assured the community officers were "not sitting around at the station waiting for an incident to happen, they are out in the community, policing".
Launceston figures revealed it had the highest victimisation rate among the state's 12 divisions, with 459 victims per 10,000 people compared to 299 in Hobart. In Deloraine, the victims per 10,000 rate sat at 85.
Police Association of Tasmania president Colin Riley said it came down to resourcing.
"If you don't have enough staff, you are just reacting to crime incident after crime incident," he said.
The Deloraine division covers 56,782 people, while the Launceston has 67,449.