Beyond the spin: What has happened to crime in Victoria?

Crime has stoked fears, headlines and political debate in Victoria and has the potential to decide Saturday's state election.

On one side, the Andrews government has argued a drop in Victoria's overall crime rate is proof the fight against crime is gaining ground. But listen to the Coalition and Victoria's crime crisis has made law and order the "number one issue" for voters.

So what's the truth behind the spin and the campaigning.

One of the best resources for gauging the state’s crime level is data from the state’s Crime Statistics Agency, which works independently of Victoria Police to compile and publish statistics.

This graph of Victoria’s crime rates helps tell the story of how crime has changed over time.

It shows that crime rates remained roughly level under the Brumby, Baillieu and Napthine governments, but experienced a rise that coincided with Daniel Andrews’ first full year in power.

For two years, crime rates were tracking at about 64 incidents per 1000 people, substantially higher than the rate under the previous administrations.

But in the past year there has been a large drop in offending, and the crime rate is tracking at a similar range to how it was during the Brumby, Baillieu and Napthine eras.

So what was responsible for the sudden surge in crime in 2015/16? There was a big increase in car thefts, items being stolen from cars, residential burglaries and people resisting arrest. These are some of the most widespread and commonly-reported crimes throughout the state, so these increases caused the uptick shown in the graph.

The big drop in crime over the past year has been because of a downturn in these exact same offences – car thefts, non-aggravated burglaries and thefts from motor vehicles are happening at their lowest rate in a decade.

But this graph includes all crimes. It does not adjust for the seriousness of particular offences. For example, there could be 10 times more homicides than normal one year, but it wouldn’t cause a ripple in the chart since it is something that happens so infrequently and is dwarfed by the sheer number of items getting stolen from cars.

This is what the data shows for some of the crimes that most preoccupied Victorians in the past few years.

Aggravated burglaries

An aggravated burglary is where a home is broken into when a resident is present at the time but it doesn’t necessarily mean the victim came into contact with the crook.

As you can see, the rate of this crime increased significantly in 2015/16, and there was a downturn last year, but these types of break-ins are still happening at a higher rate than they were.

The figures also show that aggravated burglaries are making up a larger proportion of residential burglaries than they once did.

In 2008/09, 5 per cent of home burglaries were aggravated; now the proportion is 10.9 per cent.

It’s not possible, unfortunately, to gauge the rate of home invasions, which are brazen aggravated burglaries carried out by multiple offenders.

These offences only started being counted separately in December 2016, so there has not been enough time to chart with any accuracy whether the crime is rising or falling.

Non-aggravated burglaries

Last year there were 28,337 residential burglaries in Victoria, or about three every hour on average. But on a per capita rate and in real terms, they are at their lowest in the past decade.

Assaults

Last year there were 38,560 assaults in Victoria, 14,253 more than there were a decade ago. Assaults have been going up and up.

That graph looks pretty bad, but there’s more to it than meets the eye.

The increased rate is partly because there has been a surge in family violence incidents over the past decade, something which rarely used to be reported to police.

There were three times as many family-violence-related assaults reported to police in the past year than there were a decade ago. Family violence used to make up a quarter of assaults, now it makes up half.

But family violence rates are difficult to analyse, since it is hard to determine whether we’re seeing improved reporting, a higher incidence of the crime or a combination of the two.

The increased rate of family violence doesn’t just affect this chart of assaults. Family violence made up about 14 per cent of criminal incidents reported to police last year, and is one of the reasons why the total crime rate is higher than it used to be.

Once family violence assaults are removed, the data has a different shape:

This assault rate was heading down until 2014/15 but has undeniably started rising again in the past few years.

These graphs show what has happened to crime rates but not how Victorians feel about crime.

If you want to find out more about who you should vote for based on what you think of the parties' policies, including crime and justice, try our policy interactive.

You won't know whose policies you are picking until the end.

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