Wounding and assaults are up but burglary, criminal damage and vehicle thefts are down in west Oxfordshire.

That is the picture from crime figures for the past year, released this week by the area's police commander Chief Supt Dennis Evernden.

The unofficial British Crime Survey statistics cover the period from April 2007 to the end of January this year.

Official figures will be published in two months.

Mr Evernden said extra resources were now being put into dealing with the causes of the increase in incidents of violence.

He said: "It's the pattern across the country and this is currently our priority area.

"We now have town centre initiatives in Witney, Carterton and Chipping Norton, areas with a night time economy.

"We are dishing out fixed penalty fines for drunken behaviour so that it does not escalate into assault and wounding."

Increases in incidents of domestic assault were largely because people were now more likely to report them, he said.

Elsewhere, Police Community Support Officers and targeted policing has made inroads into crime in the district.

When it came to burglary, the detection rate in West Oxfordshire was now better than one in three, compared to the rest of the Thames Valley at one in 10.

Mr Evernden said: "That's a detection rate to be proud of, but it's so high because we have caught the few travelling burglars who commit so much of our burglaries."

A year ago, a policy was drawn up to recruit, in Mr Evernden's words, "an army of Police Community Support Officers" after being given funds to do so by the Government.

A full complement of 20 are now in place, and funding is guaranteed for next year.

"Every area where they are concentrated the crime statistics have turned from red to blue," he said.

"We have some cracking people out there on the streets.

"They have contributed massively to our ability to cut crime. It is their presence and the information they pick up and pass on which is so invaluable."

PCSOs do not have powers of arrest. They can act, however, as the eyes and ears of the local force.

Their role has freed up regular officers to concentrate on priorities drawn up by the West Oxfordshire Crime Safety Partnership.

Overall, the crime rate in west Oxfordshire in the past ten months has dropped by seven per cent, four per cent above the target set by the Government.