Limestone Coast police have attributed a significant drop in reports of rural crime in the region, in part due to the high police visibility due to state border controls.
This comes as more police have been deployed to multiple checkpoints along the South Australian-Victorian border.
Acting officer-in-charge Inspector Campbell Hill said an increased police presence in the border region since the start of the pandemic had led to a drop in reported rural crime.
Rural crime includes the theft of stock, machinery and diesel.
"People are obviously aware that there is quite a high number of police that are making their way through the region as part of our work with COVID-19 on border restrictions and … [there is] a lot of compliance behaviour," he said.
"I think people are probably seeing a lot more of the police about the place and that might have a natural crime-prevention effect."
Inspector Hill said police were mobile along the border and along backroads.
"Which is generally something that we're not able to do at such a high volume at any other time," he said.
"Criminals don't generally use mainstream thoroughfares to undertake their activity, so there's certainly a lot of police cars in areas where people wouldn't typically expect to find us."
The inability of people to easily move across state boundary lines could also be a factor in the drop in the rural crime rate.
"I think we'd be naive to think that there isn't a link between the restricted movement between South Australia and Victoria and the drops that we're seeing," Inspector Hill said.
He said police had been working with primary producers in the rural crime space.
"I'd like to also think that through the partnerships that we've been establishing and chipping slowly at with the community over the last 12 months … has had a bit of a combined effort."
Will the peace last?
Inspector Hill said police hoped the region maintained the lower crime rates.
"But we also recognise that at the end of the day, we are talking about people, and people can be reasonably unpredictable."
He said police would be paying close attention to the fluctuating rate.
"Whether that [COVID-19 restrictions] has any direct impact on any rise or any further fall is something that we'd be keenly paying attention to."
