The Crime Statistics Agency (CSA) released the Victorian recorded crime statistics for the year ending 30 September 2020 today.
In the year ending September 2020 six new COVID-19-related breach of Chief Health Officer Directions offence codes were introduced. There were 32,713 of these offences recorded, driving the increase in Public health and safety offences. These COVID-19-related offences have increased the number of alleged offenders processed by Victoria Police recorded and the number of police recorded Criminal incidents and Recorded offences. For more information about COVID-19 impacts on crime can be found in the CSA paper Police-recorded crime trends in Victoria during the COVID-19 pandemic: update to the end of September.
In the 12 months to 30 September 2020 the number of criminal incidents increased by 4.2% or 16,652 incidents to 413,042.
The number of recorded offences increased by 4.4% or 23,229 offences to 551,710 in the year ending September 2020. In the last 12 months 1 in 17 offences were related to COVID-19 Breach of Chief Health Officer Directions.
Alleged offender incidents increased by 24.5% (40,109 incidents) to 204,068 in the last 12 months, while the alleged offender incident rate increased by 22.3% to 3,469.9 per 100,000 population.
In the last 12 months, victim reports decreased by 4.6% to 295,323, business/organisation victim reports decreased by 7.0% to 78,417, as did person victim reports, a decrease of 3.7% to 216,906. The victimisation rate also decreased by 5.3% to 3,234.5 reports per 100,000 Victorians.
Family related incidents increased 7.5% in the last 12 months to the highest on record, 90,056 incidents. The rate of family incidents recorded increased by 5.7% to 1,342.9 incidents per 100,000 population.
CSA Chief Statistician Fiona Dowsley said that “the COVID-19 public health response created the criminalisation of new behaviours in Victoria with over 32,000 offences recorded by Victoria Police. This has resulted in record numbers of Criminal incidents, Recorded offences and Alleged offenders incidents.”
More detailed information is available on the latest crime data webpage.
For further information please contact:
Crime Statistics Agency
Email: info@crimestatistics.vic.gov.au (External link)
^ Please note that movements over time in recorded crime data may be impacted by changes in legislation and operational police practice.
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