Dan Petrie: Queensland’s crime statistics reveal gangs and guns are on the rise

Recent crime data reveals southeast Queensland’s gang activity is getting harder with concealed weapons and unlawful use of motor vehicles rising, writes Dan Petrie.

Everybody who lives in our great state knows that crime is rising and despite the protestations from some politicians, Queensland Police data proves it.

However, there is some good – and as one would expect – some bad news contained within the data provided by police. An increase in the number of people coming forward to report domestic violence reflects a greater awareness of the need to confront the scourge of violence within the family home.

Conversely gang led crime remains a challenge which will need to be met forcefully in order to reverse the double digit increases in property and weapons related offences that have propelled total offences higher since 2015.

Understanding crime data is challenging and for those readers who have endured a first-year university psychology class, will know the phrase, “correlation does not imply causation”.

Overall, criminal offences in 2020, police recorded 498,440 criminal incidents, up 9 per cent from 2015 at 458,442 across Queensland.

Assessing the positive, the reporting of breaches of domestic orders has increased 87 per cent from 19,284 in 2015 across the state to 36,037 last year.

My old boss, Mike Bloomberg loves the line, “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it and you can’t fix it.”

In finding a positive, the Bloomberg philosophy around increased reporting of domestic violence offences is the first painful step we as a society have to embrace to improve outcomes for people living with the threat of the daily threat of abuse.

Queensland Police statistics observe, three core areas, crimes against individuals, offences around property and criminal activity (think drugs, prostitution and weapons acts) where criminals will commit offences across the three areas.

Offences around property are the key driver behind the pick up in crime related statistics and account for half of all offences while criminal activity in terms of drug offences, liquor, traffic offences are all down. The area that stands out is gang related activity around the unlawful use of a motor vehicle and a 26 per cent leap in weapons offences.

Guns seized in a recent raid. Picture: Queensland Police

A Queensland police detective who spoke with me on the condition of anonymity said gangs are acquiring more guns and increased hostility towards police is making the work environment increasingly unsafe for front line officers.

It is no coincidence the federal government earlier this week made the national firearms amnesty permanent. (No doubt about causation and correlation here).

The rise in offences related to concealed firearms is not idle coffee shop chat and is on the rise.

Interestingly, concealed firearms are relatively small in number but concentrated heavily in the southeast corner of the state.

When coupled with significant increases in property offences around break and enter combined with the double-digit increases in unlawful motor vehicle use, criminals are not only becoming harder but increasingly more dangerous. Anecdotal stories of thieves targeting wealthier suburbs such as Hamilton and Chelmer in Brisbane are most certainly real and it is stolen cars, unlawful entry and theft that account for a large portion of property related offences.

While Townsville garners many of the headlines around youth crime, gang activity within the south east provides a sobering statistic about the rise of concealed weapons and unlawful motor vehicle use.

The roll call of the same data set shows a 74 per cent increase in the Brisbane City Council area, 57 per cent jump in the Moreton Bay Region and a 46 per cent rise with Gold Coast city council region pertaining to stolen motor vehicles.

Dan Petrie is Chief Information Officer of data analytics firm, Grafa and a former Economic Data Editor at Bloomberg LP who also goes by the name of Data Dan – do you have a data question? Email [e-mail]