Overall reported crime in the West Midlands was at its lowest level in 18 years last month, according to police figures.
The amount of crime reported between April and December last year was also down by more than 10 per cent compared to the same period in 2006.
West Midlands Police reported falls in the majority of areas of crime, apart from racist crime and burglary.
The findings come as Home Secretary and MP for Redditch Jacqui Smith defended Britain's youth who many blame for a perception of growing violence in society.
Ms Smith said a bigger problem was the way people reacted to serious crime.
The fall in reported crime in the West Midlands comes despite growing concern over violence involving knives and guns nationally.
According to West Midlands Police, there were 186,857 incidents of recorded crime between April and December last year, compared to 208,330 the same period in the previous year.
Offences involving serious harm fell nearly 10 per cent to 32,136 incidents.
Business crime was down 13.3 per cent, criminal damage down 15.7 per cent, robbery down 16.6 per cent, vehicle crime fell by 12.8 per cent and violent crime was down eight per cent.
Racial crime was up 0.1 per cent and burglary up five per cent.
Victim Support, however, stressed only about half of all incidents of crime are reported.
"How do you measure something that is essentially invisible?" asked Paul Fawcett, spokesman for the national charity.
"It is generally accepted that violent crime is on the up. But it is important to remember that a 10 per cent increase on a small number can't be compared with a smaller increase on a bigger figure for something that happens more frequently like burglary. It is tempting to get anxious by the figures. But the more we stir fear up the more we stop people going about their lives.
"It is important we assess risk reasonably and get on with our lives. There are some parts, particularly in cities, which are high risk areas.
"But large parts of the country don't have it as bad."
Official Home Office figures show there was a two per cent fall in recorded crime in England and Wales during 2006-07.
However, the British Crime Survey - which is based on market research and therefore reflects non-recorded crime - indicates a three per cent increase.
A key focus of police activity in recent years has been aimed at tackling the perception of rising crime to ensure people feel safe in their community.
Ms Smith sparked a row recently by appearing to claim she did not feel safe to walk alone on the streets at night. Yesterday she denied that was what she meant.
"I do feel - certainly before I had to be followed around by police all day long - I did feel able to walk around where I live in Redditch and where I live in London," she told GMTV.
"What I actually said was, as I think with most women at midnight, as I was asked about - I probably wouldn't feel comfortable walking somewhere I didn't know."
Ms Smith insisted that the Government had taken action to make sure that those caught carrying guns and knives were more likely to be caught and punished.
But she rejected the idea of subjecting repeat offenders to national service, although she accepted that younger people needed other things to do.
"I'm not sure that we want our military to have to take on a whole lot of people who don't want to be there," she said.
* How I was attacked and three yobs got clean away with it.
Shahid Naqvi gives a personal account of falling victim to young thugs.
Crime is at an 18-year low and Jacqui Smith doesn't believe the streets are as unsafe as people think they are.
That's fine then. Unless Ms Smith had been me a year ago walking down the high street near my home when I was set upon by three youths who repeatedly punched me in the face.
The time was 11.30 on a Monday night and I was with two colleagues, one female, trying to decide where to go for a bite to eat after a couple of drinks.
These feral creatures of the dark - one could not have been much older than 13 - inflicted a ferocious attack on myself and my male colleague. The reason? One of them - who was about 15 - walked past and threw his bag of chips at us in a deliberate act of provocation.
This was cue for his two rabid mates to rush out of the shadows and jump us.
The oldest, probably no more than 25, grabbed a bottle out of his bag and smashed it over my friend's head.
Pleas by our female colleague for them to stop went unheeded under the wall of unprovoked aggression.
Had one of us fallen to the ground, I'm pretty certain we would have been hospitalised, possibly even permanently injured.
At that point, thankfully, two police cars came past, arrested the bottle smasher and took us to the police station. We all gave statements and thought it was a clear-cut case and that some form of prosecution would follow. Next day, however, we were told our attacker had been let off with a caution.
In our eyes - and those of all our friends and colleagues - this was not justice. What it did was in effect tell me that I do not have the right to walk down my own high street and be protected.
Despite catching these yobs red-handed, the police effectively let them all off. Apparently, the law as it stands encourages the police to let youths off with a caution if they show contrition, do not have a criminal record and there's no serious injury. I am left completely mistrustful of those who repeatedly tell us crime is going down.
