wa-safer-state-than-anywhere-in-the-country-burglary-rates-plummet-to-10-year low
The State’s top cop has declared WA a “much safer State than anywhere in the country” as burglary rates plummet to a 10-year low.
Fresh data from WA Police has revealed Statewide burglaries have dropped from 37,505 in 2015 to just 12,693 in 2024 alone.
Of the 12,693 cases, 8162 were in the Perth metropolitan region, while 4531 were in rural WA.
“Most of the places in our State are very, very safe,” Police Commissioner Col Blanch said.
“Last financial year there were only 18,000 burglaries; 18,000 too many but there used to be 60,000 burglaries in WA so that’s . . . a much safer State than anywhere in the country.”
Metropolitan Regional Commander Dario Bolzonella said WA Police had escalated its number of staff at the State Operation Command Centre in a bid to catch high-harm offenders.
The Sunday Times visited the command centre in central Perth, which has an array of video walls — high-tech screens feeding officers with live footage of CCTV vision, body-worn cameras, automatic number plate recognition alerts and Air Wing vision.
Cdr Bolzonella said the centre’s capabilities were so advanced it could link burglaries to other crimes within minutes.
“When the data comes in we can see patterns, trends, common factors and we can see it very quickly . . . we can see it in minutes and hours, that’s how effective it is,” he told The Sunday Times.
“Historically, the data would come in and it was a very manual reporting process . . . a vehicle would go out and then it would take us days, sometimes weeks, to start identifying how many burglaries had happened in a particular place and see if they are linked and if they are the same offenders.
“We’re doing a hell of a lot quicker than what we ever did and that’s directly impacting the crime stats.”
Centre operations manager Mark Ridley said burglaries were often linked to stolen vehicles.
“Motor vehicles are often stolen from burglaries because they’re often used to facilitate other crimes,” he said.
“The SOCC are particularly interested every time a burglary happens and a car is stolen because we want to make sure we can catch that car and stop a spree of offending.
“We can track the car using Air Wing, ANPR, even the triangulation of a stolen phone . . . it stops a whole spree of offending.”
Cdr Bolzonella said burglaries were a violation of personal space and acknowledged they had a “massive impact” on people’s lives and feelings of safety.
“We make no secret of the fact that we put a lot of effort into our approach towards solving these types of crimes and reducing the ongoing impact,” he said.
“Whether it’s data from CCTV cameras from residential homes, businesses, councils and shopping centres, we can pipe that live into the SOCC.
“Then we deploy our resources, move our people around to act on that data and make really good decisions as to what we do next.”
According to data from WA Police, almost 20 suburbs — including Dalkeith, Coolup and North Lake — recorded just one burglary in 2024.
Gosnells recorded one of the highest incidences of burglaries, tracking 138 in 2024.
Metro Regional Commander Dario Bolzonella at the State Operations Command Centre.
WA Police has also established eight Rapid High Harm Offender Response units in a bid to combat high-volume offenders involved in serious crimes.
“(The units) conduct swift investigative actions to identify which individuals are causing the most harm in the community and ascertaining the whereabouts of these individuals and arresting them as soon as possible,” a police spokesperson said.
Cdr Bolzonella said WA Police would continue to “throw everything” at solving serious crimes and apprehending high-harm offenders.
“You start looking at the advances in tech, the tools that police officers need to do their job and it all comes together really well . . . the fact that we’ve got the lowest burglaries on record is a testament to that,” he said.
“We throw everything at it . . . but we’re not going to rest here, we’re going to keep going and we want to be even better.
“It’s not a matter of if we’re going to catch anyone, it’s a matter of when.”