Latest crime statistics show the number of family incidents stabilising

The Crime Statistics Agency has today released its recorded crime statistics for Victoria for the year ending 31 March 2017.

Recorded crime statistics show that there were 543,391 offences recorded by Victoria Police in the year to March 2017, up 4% compared to the same period last year. This equated to an offence rate of 8,824.8 per 100,000 of the population, up 2.5% from the previous year. A large proportion of this increase is attributed to increases in property and deception offences, which were up 4.5% and comprised 60% of all recorded crimes in Victoria in the last 12 months.

Offender incidents increased by 10% to 181,147 offender incidents in the year ending March 2017, making the Victorian offender rate 2,941.9 offender incidents per 100,000 population. Almost a third (32%) of all offender incidents involved a person aged between 20 and 29 years.

The victimisation rate increased by 6% compared to the same period last year, making the rate 5,422.8 per 100,000 population in the year to March 2017.
 

Crime Statistics Agency Chief Statistician Fiona Dowsley said that for the first time in recent years, the family incident rate is beginning to stabilise in Victoria.

‘In the last 12 months the rate of family incidents in Victoria increased by 0.1%, compared to the previous year when the rate increased by 8%.’ Ms Dowsley said.

‘In many local areas across the state we have seen reductions in family incident rates. Out of the 79 Local Government Areas across Victoria, almost half of them (43%) showed decreases in family incident rates in the last 12 months.’

Further information can be found in the latest crime statistics quarterly release, available from the CSA website:

http://www.crimestatistics.vic.gov.au/crime-statistics/latest-crime-data/