SENIOR officers believe police crackdowns have helped reduce the rates of youth-related crime across the Moree area despite recent violent incidents and concerns on social media.

New England crime manager, Detective Inspector Kingsley Chapman revealed new figures to the Leader , showing most crime categories involving youth were stable or falling in the year to August across Moree.

"There's a number of stable categories, a number of categories have reduced," he said.

He said overall, "we're definitely not seeing increases" in the majority of crime categories, "despite what is being said on social media".

But Detective Chapman acknowledged there had been some particularly violent incidents - one where an Alice Street motelier had been stabbed on September 14 , and another where a

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