Crime rates spiked an alarming 223 per cent at the beginning of this year, as police dealt with a record amount of break-ins to houses and local businesses.

Police records show 69 break-ins for the month of January, and 55 for the month before.

Operation Pelion came into effect in February as a direct response to the crisis, and is one of the reasons crime rates have dropped so significantly, Commander Hebb said.

"We have no intentions of winding it up, we are continually reviewing its effectiveness, and I am comfortable with the hard work and efforts of the team.

"The operation is another of the initiatives that is contributing to reducing crime.

"At this time I am comfortable Pelion is delivering excellent outcomes, I am impressed with their work."

Making use of police intelligence, a number of repeat offenders have been targeted and known crime hot-spots have seen an increased focus.

The latest crime statistics for Katherine were recently released showing commercial break-ins are up 48 per cent, but he says that's influenced by larger figures late last year and earlier this year.

"We were experiencing high numbers of break-ins, but through initiatives we have introduced and partnerships we have adopted, there has been a turn around in offending rates," he said.

"The data may say it's up 48 per cent, this is year-on-year data which has progressively been reducing.

"If we look at December and January, for both those months we had 41 break-ins, now, we look at July and August and we've had 10."

While it was noted just one break-in was one too many, he stressed the downward trend was a turnaround for the town.

"Ten is still not acceptable, we still are working to reduce offending further and there is more work to be done, but what I'm trying to provide advice on is that we have seen a reduction in the number of offences.

"We have seen that across commercial break-ins and house break-ins, which is quite often a measurement of how crime rates are within a community."

Assault rates are also down, according to the Commander, largely due to the efforts of the contingent of Police Auxiliaries stationed at all bottle shops in Katherine.

"Assaults were up four per cent in March, and it was up even higher than that before.

"It is has been quite significantly coming down to the point we are down 18 per cent," he said.

He said the auxiliaries are reducing harm in the community, reducing presentations at Katherine Hospital and reducing offending rates.

"The bottom line is we have less victims, and that is a significant achievement.

"I am extremely impressed by the amount of work our people have been able to undertake."

More reading: Katherine's crime rate debated in Parliament

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