Drug incidents soar in Victoria as new crime stats released
New crime figures from across Melbourne and Victoria show drug use and possession incidents have jumped 11 per cent in a year.
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The number of criminal incidents recorded in Victoria has risen more than 2 per cent in a year, with drug use and possession up 11 per cent, robbery up 6 per cent and weapons offences up 9 per cent.
The Crime Statistics Agency today released Victorian crime statistics for the 12 months to March 31.
The number of recorded offences increased by 2.6 per cent to 515,682 in the past 12 months.
The agency says they were the “highest offender rates and lowest victim report rates since
July, 2004”.
Crime Statistics Agency Chief Statistician Fiona Dowsley said: “Alleged offender numbers have continued to increase in the last decade and are the highest in CSA data holdings, since July 2004.”
The five local government areas with the highest criminal incident rates are:
* Melbourne (14,767.7 incidents per 100,000 estimated resident population, down 6.7 per cent);
* Latrobe (13,193.5 incidents per 100,000 estimated resident population, up 5.8 per cent);
* Yarra (11,066.9 incidents per 100,000 estimated resident population, up 2.8 per cent);
* Mildura (9,865.1 incidents per 100,000 estimated resident population, up 13.5 per cent); and,
* Greater Shepparton (9,376.5 incidents per 100,000 estimated resident population, up 3.4 per cent).
Other criminal incidents data just released includes:
* Assault and related offences, up 3.6 per cent from 39,025 to 40,428
* Robbery, up 6.4 per cent from 2,511 to 2,671
* Drug use and possession, up 11.3 per cent from 10,873 to 12,097
* Weapons and explosives offences, up 9.5 per cent from 8,810 to 9,645.
Police Minister Lisa Neville said this morning Victoria Police’s focus this year was on making people feel safe at home and on the streets.
“I think one of the outcomes of these statistics is we continue to see those high harm crimes,” she said.
“The other important new part of this story is the first time we’ve seen the victimisation rate decrease while the offending rate increases.
“The story is a focus on high harm crimes.
“These are the crimes that have the biggest impact and the lasting effect.
“Our key focus - our only focus - is making people feel safe.
“Every single victim matters. And it’s those stories that drive every police officer out there.”
Ms Neville said serious offending by teenagers was a continued target, with the largest number of offenders aged 15-19.
“We continue to see overall youth offending come down - which is great. But there is no question we have a small group that is responsible for serious crimes. And that’s why we have... specialist groups for youth crime.”
“One of the things that we have established in some of those areas is the multi agency panel - so for the first time we have sharing of data between VicPol, health, education. And we’ve seen some great outcomes.”
Deputy Commissioner Shane Paton said Victoria Police had attended 81,000 family violence incidents in the 12 month period - an increase of 6000.
“We don’t want to be attending one,” he said.
“It equates to us attending one family violence incident every six minutes.”
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He also highlighted the increase in car jackings as a concern for authorities.
“About a third of all car jackings are attempts - and about 10 per cent of those are known to each other,” he said.
“This is a really difficult crime to police - it’s often opportunistic.
“We know we have more work to do ... but the chances of being a victim of a car jacking are very low indeed.”
Family related incidents increased 8 per cent in the past 12 months to 81,252 incidents.
“We will continue to target and arrest offenders in record numbers,” Dep Comm Patton said.
He said decreases in residential burglaries were due to offender management.
“We identify through our intelligence people who we know are going to be committing these type of offences and we target them - and we make no excuses for that.
“Also we’re capturing them a lot quicker now... our proactive enforcement - we’re grabbing them early on... and are really reducing the number of offences.”
A spate of recent gun crime was reflected in the figures, with Victoria’s gun crime at a 10-year high.
“A lot of that is about storage of ammunition... checking in relation to compliance. But certainly the firearms issues are of significant concern to us. And we have seen some increase in firearm usage in the community - we know that,” Dep Comm Paton said.