Serious offences soar in Melbourne’s teen crime wave
Teenage crime is on the rise in several Melbourne areas, with gangs of kids as young as 10 running rampant across the city and suburbs. See if your area is among the worst affected.
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High-level juvenile crime has surged by extraordinary levels in the last five years, new statistics show.
The total number of serious crimes — including robbery and aggravated burglary — committed by children aged 10 to 17 has exploded since 2014-2015.
Crime Statistics Agency figures show aggravated robbery, usually a violent holdup, has risen from 645 to 1124 in 2018-19.
Many of those crimes are believed to be street thefts in which gangs of young offenders have assaulted victims and stolen possessions such as mobile phones.
The CBD has been particularly hard-hit, with the rate of aggravated robberies more than doubling from 70 to 149 offender incidents. The numbers support anecdotal evidence of an alarming level of street robberies in the city.
Other significant aggravated robbery increases came in the council areas of:
BRIMBANK, which rose from 58 offences to 111;
CASEY, up from 60 to 85;
WYNDHAM, which recorded a jump from 18 to 59;
MELTON, where there was a sharp spike from 17 to 49;
MARIBYRNONG, which surged from 15 to 49.
The CSA defines aggravated robbery as a robbery in which there is violence, injury is inflicted, a weapon is involved or is committed by more than one person.
Non-aggravated robbery by youngsters aged 10 to 17 statewide went from 31 to 134.
Another concerning CBD trend was the boom in assaults on police, other emergency services workers and other authorised officers, running at worse than one person a week being charged with that crime.
The 2018-2019 figure of 68 was up from 28 in 2014-2015 and sharply at odds with a relatively stable statewide trend in that period.
Aggravated burglary, where a house is burgled while its owner is at home, has rocketed from 158 to 311 across Victoria.
But there was some good news with that category appearing to be in decline after reaching a peak of 664 in the 2016-2017 year.
Many of the 1991 aggravated burglaries of the past five years are believed to have been home invasions motivated by vehicle theft, a crime favoured by suburban youth gangs. The biggest individual council area increase was in Geelong, which went from 15 to 54,
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While some serious crime categories rose, the overall offending rate across Victoria declined slightly and is now the lowest for a decade.
In 2014-2015, a total of 19,265 offender incidents was recorded. The 2018-2019 tally was 18,784.
A state government spokeswoman said a small number of “brazen” young offenders were committing more high-harm offences. “Police are rightly focusing on this specific cohort,” she said.
Commander Libby Murphy of police southern metro region said police were trying to gather intelligence on why young offenders were jumping straight to “high-harm” crimes.
Two of the factors appeared to be drug use and mental health.
“The thing that has concerned us is the fact that there is high harm high impact offending first up rather than a progression of offending and a continuum that then becomes worse,” Cdr Murphy said.
She said though police take a “zero tolerance” approach to violent crime there is an ongoing focus on early intervention to stop the youth offending cycle.
“We work across the state not only for the enforcement but the prevention as well,” she said.
“We understand that it’s not just about enforcement – it’s about prevention and reassurance to the community and support for individuals and intelligence to respond to issues as they occur.”