Sussex Police claim 50% better results

They say it is the 11th biggest percentage increase among England and Wales's 43 police forces.

Sussex Police Authority chairman Peter Jones welcomed the figures, which also show that recorded crime in Sussex fell by 1.4% in 2006/07 '“ 1,933 fewer offences '“ and the overall detection rate is at 30.9%, the highest since the introduction of national computer recorded statistics in the early 1990s.

County Cllr Jones said: "From a bottom of the table position less than ten years ago, Sussex has improved enormously over the last few years to become a modern and effective 21st century force."

"It has also contributed significantly to Sussex being one of the safest places to live in the South East. Burglary of people's homes has fallen by 59% over the past ten years; in Brighton and Hove there has been a 29% fall over the last year following Operation Reduction, the concerted effort to tackle class A drugs in the city.

"Across the county, Sussex exceeded its 2006/07 class A drugs target with 450 detections, a 17.8 per cent rise (68 more) on the previous year.

"Violent crime increased by 2.4%, but within that figure injury violent crime fell by 8.9% (1,460 fewer victims), there were 92 fewer robberies of individuals and life threatening crime decreased by 21.5% from 214 to 168 offences.

"In fact, Sussex has the lowest level of life threatening crime of any of its most similar forces in the UK and in the South East as a whole."