Kingston police are solving a higher percentage of rapes, robberies and racist and homophobic crimes, according to the official sanctioned detection rates released last week.

Of the 11,296 crimes reported during 2008-09, police said they had narrowly missed their 32 per cent detection rate target, although they have not yet released the overall detection rate or the detections for violent crime and burglaries.

The improved detection rates may have been helped in part by the overall decrease in the number of crimes from 12,276 the year before, giving police more time to devote to cases.

In every category the percentages of crimes being solved were up.

However, despite the improvements, about seven out of 10 crimes are still going unpunished.

Detection rates revealed the percentage of crimes which ended up with somebody being either charged, given a caution, handed an on-the-spot fine or dragged into court to face up to their misdeeds.

Half of all rape victims saw their attacker face justice - back to where it was in 2006-07 after a dip last year - and other sexual crimes also saw a significant increase.

There was a slight increase in the percentage of robbers being caught, and slight increases in gun crime and car crimes solved.

No one from Kingston police was available for comment.

Councillor Rolson Davies, lead member for health and adult social care, said: “It is very good that the detection rates have improved so much.”

• Get the latest crime figures in our Local Information section