Youth crime, family violence skyrocket in Victoria

Teenage crime is on the rise in Victoria once again, with youth offenders committing a record number of alleged incidents. And one specific age group is responsible for the shocking rise.

Crime has gone up in Victoria with 3.7 per cent more criminal incidents for the year ending September 30.

According to new figures released by the Crime Statistics Agency (CSA) this morning, youth crime has skyrocketed 7 per cent in just a year.

A total of 180,663 alleged offender incidents were recorded against youths aged 10 to 25 in the year to September, up from 167,772 in the previous year.

The biggest group of youth offenders was boys aged 15 to 25.

And kids aged 15 to 19 are the biggest group of alleged offenders for crimes against a person.

Crimes against a person incidents include assaults, sexual offences, homicides, abductions, robberies, stalking and blackmail.

The figures show a record 7333 alleged incidents for the age group — the largest number ever recorded for any age group.

Males aged 15 to 19 were recorded in 5536 crime against a person offences, which include assaults and aggravated robberies.

There were a further 8674 property and deception offences for boys of the same age group within the year.

Police Minister Lisa Neville said a spike in robberies was a “concerning trend”.

Youth crime has skyrocketed in Victoria.

She said there was a core group of 10 to 17-year-olds, both male and females, who were responsible for the robberies.

Half of the robberies in these statistics were committed against each other often involved the theft of mobile phones, backpacks, AirPods and shoes.

Deputy Commissioner Shane Patton said during periods of school holidays, youths were often “out and about and making bad decisions” including committing crimes.

“The rates of youth crime are very concerning to us,” he said.

“Yes, we are finding the youth of today are being more brazen, and are doing things we hadn’t seen 10 years ago.

“We are seeing a lot of the robbery offences out Dandenong, Casey, Cardinia.

“There are some people, we have some members involved in low key gang groups, who hang around together, some of them are involved in these offences.

“There are some small gangs, small groups of youth, who we actively target. In addition to that there is a lot of random offending occurs, but it’s just youth on youth because they see items that they want.

“It would be naive to say there aren’t any youth rivalries, some of them have identified themselves as street gangs, there’s always that rivalry.

“Why are they targeting each other? It’s about esteem, arrogance, wanting to take something from someone else.

“It’s important to be aware of your surroundings, when you’re using your phone, so people can’t take opportunities to snatch them.”

OVERALL CRIME ON THE RISE

Overall, there were 14,367 more criminal incidents, bringing the total number up to 397,849.

There were also more criminal incidents per 100,000 Victorians — a 1.6 per cent increase.

The number of criminal incidents increased for all types of crime except for public order and security offences.

Recorded offences increased by 4.1 per cent to 529,230 offences, while the offence rate increased by 2 per cent to 8,024.0 offences per 100,000 Victorians.

CSA chief statistician Fiona Dowsley said: “The number of alleged offenders processed by Victoria Police has been increasing over the last several year (sic).

“Since the year ending September 2015, the number of alleged offender incidents recorded has increased 14.5 per cent.”

The number of offences recorded by Victoria Police in the year to 30 September was 529,230, up 4.1 per cent from 508,446 offences recorded in the same period last year.

Alleged offender incidents also increased 7.7 per cent to 180,676 in the year to September 2019, up from 167,787.

Victim reports increased in the same period of time by 3.4 per cent (10,348) to 310,291 while family incidents also shot up by 7.4 per cent from 77,996 to 83,775.

In terms of offences recorded, crimes against the person went up from 79,869 to 82,334.

Homicides were down from 215 the previous year to 189 in the latest reporting period. Assaults went up from 43,750 to 45,658.

Family violence is also on the rise.

Robbery also rocketed from 3,120 to 3,809 while stalking and harassment went up from 11,789 to 12,567.

Deputy Commissioner Shane Patton said police were “concerned with any increase” in crime.

“These are victims of crime, this is what motivates us to do our job, to make the community safer,” he said.

Mr Patton said of the 20,000 extra offences recorded, about half were theft-related offences.

He attributed the increase in theft offences to the availability of the new police assistance line which was introduced on July 1.

“We expected to see a large increase in that reporting, we have seen a significant uplift in minor thefts, burglary, we would expect that to continue,” he said.

The five local government areas with the highest criminal incident rates were Melbourne, Latrobe, Yarra, Mildura and Greater Shepparton.

The five local government areas with the highest recorded offences were Melbourne, Latrobe, Greater Shepparton, Mildura and Yarra.

Ms Neville also said the new police assistance phone line had encouraged people to access police services they hadn’t in the past.

Shadow Attorney-General Edward O’Donohue accused the state government of failing to protect families, homes and young people from entering a life of crime.

“Worse than these headline statistics are the increases in robbery, drug dealing and drug trafficking; crimes that cause so much harm in the community and leave people afraid in their own homes,” he said.

“Despite all of Daniel Andrews’ promises and his supposed tough on crime rhetoric, Victorians are more likely to be victims of crime now than they were a year ago.”

Mr O’Donohue urged Premier Daniel Andrews to wage a “war against crime” rather than police involved in the force’s largest industrial pay dispute in almost a decade.

“Under the Andrews Government crime has increased by 4 per cent to June this year and by more than 15 per cent since the election,” he said.

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“Worse, the youth crime crisis is out of control and skyrocketing.”

When asked how the Opposition would tackle the youth justice issue, Mr O’Donohue said recidivism needs to be tackled with “the carrot and stick approach”, including tougher penalties for serious offending but also offering better opportunities to youths who are at risk.

He denied the Coalition’s tough on crime policies had lost the 2018 election, but said they did need to be updated and reconsidered.

Police are pushing for a four per cent annual wage increase — double the existing offer by government.

Industrial action began on Monday and will escalate if a deal is now soon struck.

“Rather than waging a war on our hard working police, Daniel Andrews should be waging a war against crime in Victoria,” said Mr O’Donohue.