Victorian crime hours revealed: Home burglary, theft, assault most likely in broad daylight

Many imagine crime takes place in the dead of night, but new data reveals a terrifying truth about when we’re most vulnerable. See the list

The weekend may be renowned as a time to relax but it’s also when sex offences, assaults, burglaries and robbery peaks across the state.

In 2019, the peak time for sex offences was in the wee hours of Sunday morning.

From midnight to 6am, there were 445 offences recorded, according to data released exclusively to News Corp Australia from the Crime Statistics Agency Victoria. (Two-and-a-half times as many sex offences as other time periods.)

However, sex offences remain at elevated numbers across the entire weekend. The crime rises from midday on Friday and stays elevated until it drops again on Sunday night.

Saturday night was also the peak time for ‘assault and related offences’, with 2585 offences occurring between from 6pm-midnight. And Friday night came a close second, with 2299 offences recorded in the same time frame.

The number of sex offences increases over the weekend hours. Picture: Getty

Robbery also peaked on Friday night between 6pm and midnight, with 265 offences reported,

So why are the traditional party nights of Friday and Saturday so conducive to crime?

According to Associate Professor Michael Townsley of Griffith University’s School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, it’s a number of factors which are creating the prime circumstances for criminal activity.

“For a crime to occur there has to be three elements in position – a motivated offender, a victim or target, and a guardian,” Dr Townsley said.

“Basically you need all those elements for crime to be possible. If one of them is out of alignment then a crime won’t happen.”

In other words, for a house to be broken into, there needs to be a suitable house, a willing crook, and the house’s ‘guardian’ (such as residents or neighbours who may stop the crime occurring) need to be absent or distracted to give the crook the opportunity to break in.

There are three main elements that need to be in position for a crime to occur — a motivated offender, a victim and a guardian, says Associate Professor Michael Townsley, Head of the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Griffith University. Picture: Supplied

“The example, I give is car accidents. Just as lot of cars have accidents at rush hour when there’s lots of cars and lots of congestion, crime peaks when there’s either lots of victims around, lots of offenders, or there’s no guardians,” Dr Townsley said.

Friday afternoon attracted the most burglary and break and enter offences, with 2958 offences.

While offences of ‘stalking, harassment and threatening behaviour’ peaked on weekday afternoons, with Monday seeing the highest number of 599 offences.

As for drug dealing and trafficking, it was Wednesday morning when the most offences were logged, with 332 offences occurring between 6am and midday. Given the unusual time, this may be linked to one particular drug bust resulting in a cavalcade of offences.

This CCTV footage was released by Victorian homicide detectives as they appealed for information relating to the death of teenage boy, Aguer Akech, who died after he was assaulted at the Keilor Plains Railway Station in the early hours of Sunday, 22 December, 2019. Picture: Victoria Police

While it’s hard to identify a trend for homicide as most murders arise from unique circumstances between the victim and perpetrator, there did appear to be a spike on Sunday, when 47 murder offences occurred. That’s 30 more offences than were logged on Tuesday.

Given that one in three homicide offences are family and domestic violence related (according to data released for 2019 by the Australian Bureau of Statistics) this may offer some explanation for the Sunday spike, when many couples and families are home together.

*Note, one incident can have multiple offences

Originally published as Victorian crime hours revealed: Home burglary, theft, assault most likely in broad daylight