Provisional police figures show significantly fewer violent incidents, including assaults, were reported in the central city in the past six months compared with the corresponding period the year before.
Dunedin-Clutha police area commander Inspector Dave Campbell said he could understand why people might think there was a particular problem with violence in the city at the moment, given recent publicity on several serious late-night attacks, but that was not the case.
In the 180 days to Sunday, 168 assaults in central Dunedin were reported to police, compared with 199 in the corresponding period the previous year, he said yesterday.
The number of reported grievous assaults - the most serious - dropped by 25% to 18, and the number of serious assaults was 76, down from the 92 reported over the corresponding six months the previous year. The assaults were some of 226 violent incidents reported to police in the whole Dunedin-Clutha police area, which compared with 260 reports of violence over the corresponding six months the previous year.
Over the whole Dunedin-Clutha police area, police received 85 fewer reports of violence in the past six months, than those six months a year earlier.
Incidents included assaults, intimidation, threats, kidnapping, robbery and other violence.
Insp Campbell said there had been extra patrols on the streets over summer, but he believed the decrease in assaults was more likely because of the economic downturn. Fewer people were drinking in the central city and those who were, were not spending as much on drink.
Police still believed many assaults went unreported.
CCTV in the Octagon proved that, as police spotted and attended incidents when sometimes the victims did not want to complain.
Previous analysis of the data on assaults showed most happened in areas where people congregated - outside bars, at 24-hour food outlets, or taxi stands.
Trends were that most assaults happened on Saturday and Sunday mornings, and as the night progressed offenders tended to be older and assaults more serious.
No trend towards more, or more serious, assaults on the fringes of the central business district showed up.
Arrests had been made in two of four serious assaults - one which had resulted in the death of a 51-year-old Dunedin man - in the past two months.
Police are still investigating an incident involving a 40-year-old man who is recovering from a serious head injury after being randomly beaten by a group of six people in York Pl last month.
And no arrests have been in made in a case in which two people were punched in the head by a group of people 20 minutes earlier the same night, in Princes St.
Police do not believe the incidents were related.
Insp Campbell said the grouping of what were several "nasty" assaults was likely to be only a coincidence, highlighted by the police's need to seek assistance from the public in those cases.
