Sussex is safest county to live and work in

Headline figures following the release of crime statistics for 2008-09 show that total crime fell by 9.8% last year in Sussex, which equates to 11,728 fewer victims. And the risk of becoming a victim in the county is now at its lowest level for over a decade.

A reduction in burglary is also excellent news, with a further drop of 2.6% compared to last year and 111 fewer victims.

In the last ten years, burglary from people's homes has been slashed by a huge 62% and Sussex residents live in one of the ten safest areas in the country for this type of crime.

Vehicle crime and vandalism also saw a reduction in the number of offences and victims, with a 7.6% drop (839 fewer victims) and 11.4% drop (3,039 fewer victims) respectively.

Assistant Chief Constable Robin Merrett said: "The work of Sussex Police is about catching criminals and cutting crime and in the last year we have had some real success. Figures on their own may not mean much but there is one that really stands out this year, and that's the 11,728 fewer victims that we had between April 1st 2008 and March 31st 2009.

"This is fantastic news. That there were fewer people that didn't have to suffer the inconvenience, upset, trauma and pain of becoming a victim means that we are doing our job.

"Despite this year's success, we are not complacent and are very aware that crime figures can go up just as easily as they go down. We must ensure that by working with the public, neighbourhood policing and tackling the most serious, organised and dangerous criminals we will continue to fight crime."

Although the cases of serious violent crime appear to have increased in Sussex by 85 offences over the last year, an important change in crime recording systems would have significantly contributed to this.

From April last year, all forces began to include extra offences under this category; previously, it would only have included offences where the victim was badly hurt, but it now also includes crimes where the offender intended to hurt someone - even if the eventual injury was only relatively minor.

During the year, the Force seized a record 1.6m of criminals' assets - a massive 850,000 more than the previous year's total. There was also an increase of 5.4% in the number of victims satisfied by the way in which they were kept in touch about their case.