THERE were 753 recorded crimes in the Borders in the first six months of this year – 55 fewer than the 808 of the corresponding period of 2013.

But Chief Superintendent Gill Imery, the region’s divisional police commander, revealed last week that the detection rate has also fallen – from 55.6% to 52.3%.

“It is disappointing to note a drop in the detection rate, but we are confident this will improve as the year progresses,” she told Friday’s meeting of the Police, Fire & Rescue Service and Safer Communities Board at Newtown.

CS Imery said there had been 1,431 incidents of antisocial behaviour in the year to date - an increase of 127 on the same period last year.

She said the main factors behind this 9.7% hike related to social media disputes (up 27%), drinking in public (up 22%) and general noise (26%).

However, she said the recorded victims of offences classed as hate crimes had fallen from 19 to 18.

The majority of these – 11 – related to race, which was down from 15 on last year.

Figures provided to the Border Telegraph by Borders equality officer George Higgs show that, in 2013, there were 53 race-related crimes in the region, including 11 perpetrated against Asians, 14 against non-British white Europeans and 12 against people of Afro-Caribbean descent and those of mixed race.

CS Imery said two of this year’s hate crime incidents related to a juvenile making derogatory homophobic remarks towards a youth.

There has also been one “isolated incident” of verbal abuse being directed to a male with learning difficulties.

She said that in the year to June 30, common assaults had fallen by over 17% from 246 to 203, adding that serious assaults were also on the decrease with 10 reported in July, compared to 15 in that month last year.

The board heard that over 25% of all stop and searches of people for drugs had produced a positive result.

“This is comparable with last year and continues to show we are adopting an intelligence led approach,” said CS Imery.

She said it was “extremely pleasing” to report that her officers had carried out 100% of initial checks in cases of alleged domestic abuse within 24 hours.

The number of domestic housebreakings had remained unchanged at 28 in the year to June 30, while thefts of motor vehicles had fallen from 23 to 21.

But on the police objective of making roads in the Borders safer, she admitted the year to date had been “particularly challenging and disappointing”.

So far this year, 31 people have been killed or seriously injured on the region’s roads (20 last year), with three fatalities occurring at a single incident – the Jim Clark Rally in May. The number of seriously injured had risen from 19 to 28.

“Analytical work is carried out to establish trends and 'hot spots’ with the only trend identified being the high volume of motorcyclists [14] involved in these figures,” said CS Imery.