A rapid rise in robberies in Dundee is putting “significant” pressure on police resources, according to a new crime report.
In the last three months of 2019 alone, the city was hit by 27 robberies – higher than the five-year average and more than the same period last year.
The previous quarter, from July 1 to September 30, saw a similar number, leading to a backlog in investigations.
Recent crimes have included OAPs being assaulted and robbed. A number of newsagents across the city have also been targeted.
In one of the most high-profile incidents the Walker The Jeweller store was raided in September last year. Three people have appeared in court but police are still hunting two more.
Callum Tiple, from criminal justice consultants Crest Advisory, said robbery was often a “gateway” to violent crime.
He said: “Given the strong connection identified in our analysis between robberies and serious violence such as knife crime (with almost a quarter of all robberies nationally enabled by knives), these rises are a worrying and disturbing sign of what might be to come.
“In particular, drugs are increasingly recognised as a major driver of serious violence.
“Our research suggests that often too little is known about how drug markets are working, and about how best to stop them fuelling violence on the supply and demand sides.”
He said dealing with the root causes of robbery, and serious violence more broadly, would not be straightforward.
“It requires both an in-depth understanding of the local criminal profile and a public health approach embedded across the local area, with all agencies working closely together to eliminate the risk of violence at source,” he added.
In the police’s quarterly report to the council, divisional commander for Tayside, chief superintendent Andrew Todd, said the issue had been “challenging”.
He said cases were not always reported at the time, and victims and witnesses can be uncooperative for a number of reasons.
“A large number of these crimes are opportunistic, and are not pre-planned, again making these challenging to prevent,” he said.
“The volume of these instances places significant challenges for our investigative resources with many of the complex investigations being led by CID.
“Given the increase in instances of this crime type it can take longer for crimes of this nature to be fully investigated.
“The detection rate remains low, but given the volume of these instances it is not unusual for investigations to take longer to progress.”
He said the length of time taken to trawl through “often poor quality” CCTV was adding to the drain on resources.
The city also saw a large rise in the number of sexual crimes reported (48%), which the force says is largely due to proactive work and historical offences.
The number increased from 323 crimes to 480 for the
same period this year.
