By Daniella White, Alexander Darling and Kieran Rooney
Victoria is grappling with its highest youth crime rate since electronic records began, with new figures laying bare the surge in offending that forced the state government to strengthen bail laws.
Police are making 208 arrests a day, alongside an unprecedented seizure of edged weapons, marking what is likely to be the highest figures in the force’s history.
Youth offending in Victoria is at its highest level since electronic records commenced in 1993.Credit: Marta Pascual Juanola
There was an 18 per cent rise in offences committed by 10- to 17-year-olds in the 12 months to March, according to the latest figures from the Crime Statistics Agency. People under 18 were charged with 25,275 offences over that period.
As an Age investigation into knife crime revealed in 2023, hospitalisations from knife-related attacks started spiking in 2019, alongside an increase in youth offending. The latest statistics show the number of knives seized has reached record levels.
The sale of machetes was banned in the aftermath of an armed gang brawl at Northland shopping centre in May, but a full ban will not come into force until September 1, when long knives will be classified as a prohibited weapon under Victorian law.
As The Age reported in 2023, escalating violence between youth gangs has been an ongoing cause for concern for police for years.
Police Minister Anthony Carbines conceded the statistics were unacceptable but maintained the government’s bail reforms earlier this year would prompt a drop in crime.
“The government has acted, we are seeing more offenders remanded than ever before since these changes came into effect, and they will continue to hold repeat offenders to account,” he said.
“So I would expect that we will start to see in the coming quarters the effect of repeat offenders who are behind bars.”
Facing immense pressure over a surge in violent and repeat youth offending, the Labor government in March moved to crack down on crime by introducing sweeping new bail laws.
The changes mean courts now have to consider community safety as the primary consideration in bail decisions, a shift away from the principle of remand as a last resort for young people.
The government also created new offences for committing indictable offences on bail and breaching bail conditions.
The state government’s tougher laws started from March 21, meaning they had limited impact on the latest quarterly data.
Carbines said the bail shake-up had resulted in a 100 per cent increase in youth offenders remanded and a 31 per cent increase in adult offenders remanded.
“That’s into the hundreds of people who would have otherwise been in the community committing other offences,” he said.
On Tuesday night, the City of Melbourne voted to approve the deployment of 11 private security guards in the CBD at a cost of $2 million.
Lord Mayor Nick Reece said a trial of the security guards had been a success, and when he had walked down Swanston Street, shop traders had chased him down to thank him.
“We cannot deny that while Melbourne is a safe city, we do have problem behaviours, and we have problem areas,” Reece said. “It’s been described as an epidemic of petty crime.”
The opposition seized on the new statistics to claim the government has lost control of crime in the state.
“We’re now in a position where people do not feel safe in the one place they should – their home,” Opposition Leader Brad Battin said.
Battin said violent crime targeting shops was increasingly concerning, with major retailers telling Liberal MPs they were instructing staff to wear body cameras and to have emergency call buttons on their wrists.
“What we should be doing is having the police on the street to prevent these crimes,” he said.
“We used to have bike patrols, coppers walking through shopping centres, engaging with the community, but we’ve lost a lot of that because we don’t have the resources.”
The new crime statistics reveal youth offending is at its highest level since electronic records began in 1993, with data showing a consistent increase in crime rates for young people since 2022.
“Children only account for 13.1 per cent of all offenders processed, however, they are overrepresented in serious and violent crimes such as robberies (63.1 per cent), aggravated burglaries (46 per cent), and car theft (26.9 per cent),” a police spokesman said.
The data revealed that for a third consecutive quarter, police recorded the most arrests since electronic records began and, most likely, in Victoria Police’s 172-year history.
There were a total of 25,917 people arrested a combined 75,968 times, which is the equivalent of 208 arrests per day.
The fastest growing crimes were property crimes, including thefts from cars and stores.
Family violence rose to another record, with incidents increasing 10.7 per cent, and breaches of orders rising more than 18 per cent.
Police said most breaches were committed using technology with offenders using mobile phones and social media to target victims.
The rate of firearm offences has also increased but is still below what it was three years ago, while the rate of prohibited weapons offences has risen but remains lower than pre-pandemic levels.
Prohibited and controlled weapons offences – which include knife-related offences – are up 12.7 per cent. But there has been a 31 per cent increase in knife seizures over the past decade.
Acting Deputy Commissioner David Clayton said the current level of crime was unacceptable, and it would take time to resolve.
“We’ve seen increases in population, we’ve seen increases in economic conditions which drive a lot of the property crime,” he said.
Clayton said he expected the government’s crackdown would reduce rates of serious youth crime, but wraparound support services were also needed.
He said police were on track to remove a record number of illegal blades, machetes and zombie knives from the community this year, with an average of 44 taken off the streets every day.
The data showed police have already seized more than 7500 edged weapons this year, on pace to surpass the previous record of 14,805 over 12 months in 2024.
Knife seizures have increased by 31 per cent in the past decade.
The data comes from Victoria Police’s database of recorded crimes. The data requires victims to report crimes and alleged offenders to be identified, and as such does not necessarily represent all crime in Victoria.
The state opposition said on Thursday that police shortages had led to widespread underreporting and a growing number of unsolved cases.
“The Allan Labor government has failed to deliver on its promise to hire additional police, with figures from the public accounts and estimates committee revealing a shortfall of 2333 available officers,” the opposition said in a statement.
In the days leading up to the release of these statistics, the state government announced new laws adding extra jail time to the sentences of offenders who film and post their crimes to social media.
With Cara Waters
Get alerts on significant breaking news as happens. Sign up for our Breaking News Alert.