Steve Gollschewski named new Queensland Police Commissioner as data shows crime rate jump

Queensland’s new police commissioner has vowed to put more focus on victims as fresh data reveals the state’s crime rate increased by 11.2 per cent in the past year.

New Queensland Police Commissioner Steve Gollschewski. Picture: NCA NewsWire / John Gass

Queensland’s new police commissioner has vowed to put more focus on victims as fresh data reveals the state’s crime rate increased by 11.2 per cent in the past year.

Steve Gollschewski, who has been acting in the role since the shock resignation of his predecessor, Katarina Carroll, in February, was formally appointed after a cabinet meeting on Monday morning and travelled to the state’s “crime capital” of Townsville with Premier Steven Miles.

A veteran police officer of 44 years, Mr Gollschewski was state disaster co-ordinator during the pandemic and more recently has been overseeing major reforms in the service after commissions of inquiry into DNA testing and police handling of domestic violence complaints.

“While much has been done … much more needs to be done, for the victims of domestic and family violence, to make sure the perpetrators are held to account and can change what they do, but also for our police, who are dealing with over 140,000 calls for service every year, and tracking toward 190,000 occurrences,” Mr Gollschewski said.

“I’m committed to seeing that we have better systems, better legislation. That means that we have safe victims and more police.”

Mr Gollschewski’s appointment comes as new figures published by the Queensland Gov­ern­ment Statistician’s Office revealed that the number of crime victims had surged by 17.7 per cent year on year to 61,458.

The rate of victimisation has almost doubled in the past two years to 1,143.9 victims per 100,000 persons.

“The total number of unique victims has increased considerably for every age group and sex; however, this growth has been larger for older unique victims,” the report read.

Women aged 20-29 were the largest cohort of victims at 8385 last year, up from 3471 in 2013-14.

Indigenous people were “highly over-represented”.

The number of young offenders “proceeded against by police” increased by 8.6 per cent compared with the previous year.

Children aged between 10 and 17 years committed 37,775 property offences, including 10,873 break-ins and 7687 car thefts, which was more than any other age group.

The number of unique child offenders increased year on year by 5.2 per cent, with 11,191 juvenile criminals now in the state. In the same period, unique adult offenders increased by 4.1 per cent.

“Given the heightened police presence, higher than usual recorded numbers of youth offenders and offences typically committed by those age groups may not necessarily be indicative of an increased number of youths committing crime but rather a result of increased detection,” the report read.

Acting Assistant Commissioner for Youth Crime Andrew Massingham said more recent police data suggested assaults and robberies had declined.

“What we have seen is a significant shift in terms of the rate of ­offending totally but, moreover, particularly in our youth crime area where over a nine-month ­period we are seeing a 7 per cent decrease in total offences”.