Residents’ safety fears rising as crime wave engulfs Melbourne

Victorians feel increasingly less safe at home alone at night and walking around their neighbourhoods, new data finds.

Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton. Picture: Alex Coppel

Victorians are feeling increasingly less safe at home alone at night and walking around their neighbourhoods, according to new data that shows a five-year spike in public safety fears in the state.

A Productivity Commission report into justice services, released today, reveals 79.1 per cent of Victorians felt safe when they were at home by themselves at night last financial year, a sharp decline compared with 90.4 per cent recorded in 2013-14.

Victoria, which has been gripped by a series of crimes involving Sudanese gangs, a terrorist incident last June and the Bourke Street massacre, matches the Northern Territory in recording the equal-lowest percentage of people who felt safe at night in 2016-17.

The state also registered the lowest percentage of residents who felt safe walking during the day and after dark.

The ACT consistently had one of the highest percentages of people who felt safe at home and in the streets. “Nationally in 2016-17, 86.1 per cent of people felt ‘safe’ or ‘very safe’ at home alone during the night and 47.8 per cent of people felt safe or very safe when walking locally during the night,” the report states.

“This proportion dropped to 24 per cent when travelling on public transport during the night.”

The 8100 Victorians sampled felt safer travelling on public transport than people in Western Australia, Tasmania and the NT.

 

The significant drop in safety perceptions in Victoria comes amid a political battle between the federal and state governments over street gangs.

Federal Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton sparked outrage this month when he said Melburnians were “scared to go out at restaurants of a night time” because of African gang violence.

In January last year, Dimitrious Gargasoulas allegedly drove a car through the busy Bourke Street Mall, killing six people.

The Bourke Street massacre was followed by a violent siege in June involving terrorist Yacqub Khayre, who murdered a receptionist and held a prostitute hostage at a Brighton apartment building, leading to a shootout with Victorian police.

The Somali-born Australian was killed in the shootout and three police officers were injured.

The decline in Victoria’s public safety figures was registered in a year when the Apex gang — largely made up of African youths in Dandenong South — was gaining notoriety for carjackings, jewellery store heists and violent home invasions.

There were also several riots in youth detention centres in Melbourne’s Parkville and regional Malmsbury that left them heavily damaged and forced the Andrews government to agree to build a more secure youth jail.

In January last year, 15 youths escaped the Malmsbury detention centre, stole cars and outran police in a high-speed chase into Melbourne. About seven of the runaways spent the evening robbing houses and bashing locals before they were finally caught by police the following afternoon.

The Productivity Commission report found expenditure for justice services was almost $16.1 billion in ­2016-17, with money spent on policing and corrective services taking up the bulk of the funding. Expenditure per person on justice services was $660.

Almost 50 per cent (44.8 per cent) of prisoners who left jail in 2014-15 returned to prison within two years, while 53.4 per cent returned to corrective services — prison or community corrections — in that time.

The return rate of prisoners increased across the country over the past five years.

The rate of break-ins in the Northern Territory was a staggering 8217 victims per 100,000 households, compared with 4087 in Western Australia, 2647 in Tasmania and 2600 in Victoria.

While the latest data from the National Motor Vehicle Theft Reduction Council shows car theft in Victoria increased by more than 51 per cent in the past five years, the Productivity Commission report found the rate of cars stolen per 100,000 households in the state was less than in the NT, ACT and Tasmania.

Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton has warned that people are “looking in the wrong direction” if they expected police to clean up Melbourne’s gang problem, saying social conditions meant young people were “out there looking for trouble”.

Malcolm Turnbull said last week Victoria “obviously” had a law-and-order problem and blamed the “failure” on the state government.

“The reality is that what you’ve got there is a breakdown of law and order,” the Prime Minister told 2GB radio.

“If people feel they are not safe to go down to the shops, go to school, go to work, then the government has to address it. I have to say I think the state government here in Victoria is in denial.”

Additional reporting: Greg Brown