Andrews unlikely to budge on criminal age change despite shock new Victoria Police statistics

Youth crime has soared, shock new figures reveal, but Dan Andrews says the surge is unlikely to impact the decision to raise the age of criminal responsibility.

Crime among children aged 10-14 has spiked by more than one-third, new crime figures show.

Crimes committed by youths aged 10-14 were up 37 per cent in 2022 compared to the year before.

Total crimes committed by children in this age group jumped to 5,882 offences, up from 4,285 the year prior, the latest crime figures released on Thursday show.

It is the highest total number of offences recorded among children in the past five years.

Crime among children aged 10-14 spiked 37 per cent over 2022.

A year-on-year breakdown of recorded offences in this age group shows:

• AGGRAVATED burglaries rose 10 per cent, from 257 offences to 285.

• NON-AGGRAVATED robberies rose 129 per cent, from 17 to 39.

• ASSAULT related offences rose 33 per cent, from 1,149 to 1,537.

• WEAPONS and explosives offences jumped 65 per cent, from 107 to 177.

• SEXUAL offences dropped 5 per cent, from 119 to 112.

• PROPERTY damage offences jumped 54 per cent, from 554 to 857.

• CAR thefts rose 31 per cent, from 192 to 253.

• FAMILY violence breaches surged 94 per cent, from 34 to 66.

• ARSON offences lifted 10 per cent, from 128 to 142.

• OFFENSIVE conduct offences fell 50 per cent, from 12 to 6.

Crime among youths aged between 10 and 17 has rose 18.2 per cent with offenders in the age bracket responsible for 18,119 incidents.

Premier Daniel Andrews, however, said he didn’t believe the surge in youth crimes would impact plans to raise the age of criminality in Victoria.

“I’m sure there’ll be the usual commentators about some of these things. Until we’ve made decisions about raise the age, we best wait to have the debate when you know what it is that we actually propose,” he said.

“That’s not settled yet – far from it, so it’s very difficult to have a conversation other than a speculative one.”

Mr Andrews said it was a matter for Victoria Police to comment on specific crime trends, but said he was confident they had the resources necessary to respond to areas of concern.

“They take the crime statistics report and they go through it line by line. All of their experts look at it and analyse what those trends mean and then they respond using those extra resources,” he said.

Victoria Police Deputy Commissioner Rick Nugent said youth crime is a key concern. Picture: David Geraghty

“Crime rates are normalising after some very low numbers. The pandemic had a very positive effect on rates of crime.”

In a statement Victoria Police said: “Given their overrepresentation in serious crimes including aggravated burglaries, car thefts, robberies and carjackings, youth offenders remain a significant focus for Victoria Police.”

The force says a targeted blitz on youth gangs, dubbed Operation Alliance, was focused on “relentlessly targeting” those responsible for committing serious and violent offences.

“Operation Alliance has led to the arrest of 453 youth gang members a combined 1,440 times,” a police spokesman said on Thursday.

“For lower-level offending involving youth, police will always look to provide cautions or diversions, however when serious offending occurs, we will have no hesitation bringing youth offenders before a magistrate.”

In December last year the Victorian Greens introduced a Bill to parliament pushing to raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14.

The push to raise the age of criminal responsibility comes amid increasing international pressure for Australia to raise the age.

Victoria Police Deputy Commissioner Rick Nugent said youth crime was a “key area of concern” for the force.

“While overall crime rates are looking relatively positive, there are a few key areas of concern for police, including offenders sneaking into homes to steal car keys and overall youth offending,” Mr Nugent said.

The Moomba riot shocked Melbourne. Picture: Jake Nowakowski.

“The community can rest assured we are investing significant energy and resources towards preventing and responding to this offending, with dedicated operations in place that have led to thousands of arrests over the past year.

“While we’re doing everything we can to keep Victoria safe, we also encourage the community to ensure their homes and vehicles are locked to help prevent opportunistic offending.

“Over the coming year, police will continue to focus on proactive prevention and enforcement to ensure that the community is not only safe, but also feels safe in their homes, in public and on the roads.”

Overall crime is up slightly but remains well below pre-pandemic levels in Victoria.

There were 483,441 criminal offences recorded across the state in 2022, representing an increase of 1.2 per cent from 2021.

CSA Chief Statistician Fiona Dowsley said the majority of offence types increased in the last 12 months, with notable increases in breach of bail offences and acquisitive crime types such as thefts.

Mr Nugent said it was “very pleasing” that overall crime was down close to 10 per cent below pre-pandemic levels.

“These trends are in line with our expectations based on the intelligence available to us, which indicates that crime as a whole has not dramatically ‘snapped back’ to pre-Covid levels,” Mr Nugent said.

“There’s been some really encouraging results, with fewer robberies, family violence serious assaults, sexual offences against children, and thefts from motor vehicles in 2022 than in the previous year.”