Newly-released data from the Crime Statistics Agency show the total across the City of Ballarat in the year to 31 March 2022 has jumped by 6.7 per cent.

That's 10,288 compared to 9642 for the same period last year.

But that is far from the worst year on record, with a grand total of 11,885 offences in 2017 - and a general decline since then.

Ballarat Local Area Command Inspector Jason Templar said lockdowns, COVID restrictions and working-from-home had made a big impact.

"Our 100 per cent commitment right at the moment is around community safety and understanding people's concerns," he said.

"It's not necessarily around crime statistics.

"We have to listen to the community and what they need. For example, someone may have concerns around hoon behaviour or loitering in their neighbourhood.

"Who knows what's going on in the community better than the people who live there?"

Inspector Templar said police in Ballarat - and across Victoria - were gradually gaining the trust of the community after two years of pandemic dramas.

"It's one of our biggest challenges.".

The statistics show the most common offences across the Ballarat council area were:

Inspector Templar said the nature of theft was changing too.

"People need to lock everything - and that includes garages," he said.

"If you leave the garage unlocked, often someone can just walk straight into the house.

"There's a lot that we can all do to prevent crime. For example, don't leave keys on the table or kitchen bench or above the stove because it's the first place a car thief will look.

"It's crazy that you have to hide your keys in your own home, but that's what you have to do."

Meanwhile, the most problematic suburbs in the CSA data were Ballarat Central (2140 offences), Wendouree (1370), Sebastopol (1028), Ballarat East (676) and Alfredton (631).

All five saw a rise in crime, apart from Sebastopol. Delacombe also dropped out of the list of most-affected areas.

But it was not all doom and gloom.

The number of family violence incidents dropped by more than 10 per cent.

In the year ending March 31 there were 2161 known incidents - equal to 1870 reports for every 100,000 people in the council area.

The most common age range of affected Ballarat victims was 25-34 years (566 people), followed by 35-44 (492). Children accounted for 142 people. There were also a total of 211 over the age of 55.

Of the Ballarat people affected by domestic violence, 1631 were women and 527 were men.

The figures show last year was a horror period for family violence in the City, with a 42 per cent rise in reports to the end of March 2021.

MOORABOOL

Police working immediately east of Ballarat saw some very different trends.

The number of offences recorded in the Moorabool Shire in the year to March 30 was down more than 22 per cent - at 2038 compared to 2634 the year before.

The Shire was locked down nine times during the pandemic.

Moorabool's top five affected suburbs were:

Melbourne's 'Ring of Steel' also made a difference.

The most common Moorabool offence in 2022 was breaching family violence orders (213) - but last year the clear problem area was breaching public health and safety orders (364).

That category dropped back to fourth place in the 2022 data, with only 144 offences related to public health and safety.

The total number of family violence incidents in Moorabool also rose slightly: from 493 to 502.

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