Crimes committed by kids reach 15-year high, family violence hits record levels

Police “don’t stand a chance” against the surge in Victoria’s youth crime, union boss Wayne Gatt has said, with nine child and youth offenders being arrested daily and home invasions at an all-time high.

A 16-year-old boy is one of Victoria’s worst repeat home invaders, facing charges for 32 separate aggravated burglaries in a “disturbing” rise in young recidivist offenders.

Victoria Police Regional Operations Deputy Commissioner Neil Paterson said just 20 offenders were behind 309 aggravated burglaries in the past year.

He said the number of youths now facing more than 30 charges for criminal incidents had more than doubled in the past year, up to 103 offenders.

That included the 16-year-old boy, who has been involved in at least 32 incidents in the past year.

“We have seen significant growth in young people committing multiple offences and that is disturbing,” Mr Paterson said.

“We know that repeat youth offenders are a problem here in Victoria.”

Police arrest nine child and youth offenders, aged between 10 and 24 years old, each day across the state.

“Our efforts are going into trying to curb the re-offending behaviour by children,” Mr Paterson said.

When asked about the growing frustration among members over the “revolving door of bail”, referring to repeat offenders continually being granted bail in the courts, Mr Paterson said: “Our officers are working extremely hard … they’re doing their job. They are fronting people towards court”.

Ash Gordon died in a violent home invasion in Doncaster. Picture: Supplied

The number of child criminals has soared to a 15-year high, despite police making the most arrests in two decades.

New crime data, released on Thursday, has revealed children aged between 10 and 17-years- old are offending at their highest rate since 2009, with the same 7310 child offenders getting arrested almost 21,000 times, marking an almost 17 per cent increase.

Kids aged between 14 and 17-years-old were responsible for most child crime across the state.

Offending among that age group rose by more than 20 per cent in the past year, with 20,753 incidents recorded, as police intelligence shows they also make up three in four new youth offenders.

Youth offenders, including 18 to 24-year-olds, make up almost half the intruders carrying out home invasions, which have reached all-time highs.

At times this year the offending had fatal consequences.

Two 16-year-old boys are facing murder charges for allegedly killing 33-year-old doctor Ash Gordon after a botched home invasion at his Doncaster East townhouse.

The data showed that in many robberies or home invasions, offenders had also stolen a car.

Motor vehicle theft is sitting at its highest rate since 2003 and about 40 per cent of car thieves are children.

In July, Ashburton man William Taylor, 28, was killed when a stolen Jeep being driven by a 17-year-old boy ploughed into his car at a Burwood intersection.

Burwood fatal hit-run victim William Taylor.

This is despite around-the-clock policing under Operation Trinity, under which dozens of police officers patrol Melbourne’s eastern and southeastern suburbs.

Police have also flagged growing concern over an alarming trend involving child criminals being recruited by seasoned organised crime figures to raid petrol stations, supermarkets and tobacconists for cigarettes to sell on.

In some cases, children have been enlisted to torch venues amid Victoria’s raging tobacco wars.

One in three child criminals is now involved in at least two crimes and this offending has become one of the key drivers behind a 10 per cent increase in Victoria’s overall crime rate this year.

Victorian Police Deputy Commissioner Neil Paterson said they were a grim set of figures. Picture: Ian Currie

The spike is despite police making the highest number of arrests since 2005, making almost 200 arrests every day of the same 26,640 people 70,863 times.

Police charged that group with 268,142 crimes.

Last year, police arrested 64,975 people.

In 2005, they cuffed 56,330.

Victoria Police Regional Operations Deputy Commissioner Neil Paterson said the force would continue to crack down on the worst young offenders over the holiday period.

“Heading into the new year, we’ll continue to target Victoria’s worst child and youth offenders as we did this year – every day, police arrested nine youth gang members, child burglars and underage car thieves as part of Operation Alliance and Operation Trinity,” he said.

Police Association secretary Wayne Gatt says police ‘don’t stand a chance’ in driving down crime. Picture: David Crosling

Police Association secretary Wayne Gatt said his “hopelessly under-resourced” members “don’t stand a chance” in driving the crime data down.

He said members were demoralised and were being failed by those higher up.

“Every one of these crime stats points to a failing in policing,” he said.

“What hope do our members have? Our members don’t stand a chance at correcting this without the systemic issues dealt with.

“We are not doing our job as well as we should, we are not reducing crime to the extent that we could, if we had those resources at the front line.”

Mr Gatt said police command and the state government needed to come to the party to resolve the disastrous figures.

He said there were no updates on the progress with the Fair Work Commission.

“Government and Victoria Police need to get their heads out of the sand and respond to this. There is a crisis on their doorstep,” he added.

“(Police members) are not magicians. They cannot work in a system that doesn’t support them.”

100,000 family violence incidents for first time ever

The number of family violence incidents across the state has reached a grim new milestone after more than 100,000 incidents were recorded for the first time ever.

Police responded to 102,082 incidents of domestic and family violence over the past 12 months, an increase of 8850 or 10.4 per cent.

It is the first time in Victorian history the state has reached this “unwanted” figure.

The homicide squad also investigated 30 family violence deaths, with 12 of those occurring in regional Victoria.

They include the deaths of Nikkita Azzopardi at South Morang, Mordialloc woman Sandra Dobrila and Hannah McGuire at Ballarat.

Nikkita Azzopardi, 35, was killed at South Morang.

Mordialloc woman Sandra Dobrila was found dead at her home last month.

Aggravated assaults of a female almost doubled over the same period, jumping 92.2 per cent. Four fifths of those were related to family violence.

Police arrested the highest number of family violence perpetrators since 2005 and a third of those were repeat offenders.

More than 8500 family violence offenders were taken into custody a total of 15,446 times – equating to more than 40 each day of the year.

Victoria Police Deputy Commissioner of Regional Operations Neil Paterson said financial pressure and a rise in technology enabling stalking and harassment were critical factors in the data.

He said the number of family violence incidents recorded on Christmas Day last year was almost 100 more than the usual daily average.

“Rising crime has been driven by several factors, led by a surge in family violence,” he said.

“For the first time ever, Victoria reached the unwanted milestone of more than 100,000 family violence incidents – meaning police responded to a family violence incident every five minutes.

“Sadly, the festive and new year period is not a happy time in all homes, with family violence offences increasing sharply on Christmas Day last year.

“Over the coming weeks, police will be proactively checking on known offenders, while we also encourage people to look out for warning signs that their family and friends may be a victim of family violence.”

“We’ve never arrested more family violence offenders and are holding them to account,” Mr Paterson said

“The disturbing thing that we’re seeing is the lack of compliance with the orders of courts in terms of family violence breaches of those orders.”