More offenders than ever: One criminal for every 78 Victorians

One-in-78 Victorians were caught committing a crime last financial year, according to official new crime statistics released today.

The figure is the highest number of unique offenders ever recorded in the state.

Violent crimes including home invasions, carjackings and robberies were up in the year to June 30, as was the total number of offences.

Victoria Police Deputy Commissioner Shane Patton said the number of offenders is a serious problem.

“It is concerning,” he told 3AW’s Tony Jones.

“We’re also seeing youth go from never having been an offender to being suddenly involved in an armed robbery, it’s unheard of escalation in offending.”

“It’s a lot of peer influence, it’s a lot of hanging around with youth who are offending, and it’s making the wrong choices.”

Mr Patton said while the total number of offences is up, as a proportion of the population, crime is down.

“Whilst there’s been an increase of 7640 offences, that’s in raw figures. The offence rate … per 100,00 population, because of our rapidly growing state, has actually decreased by 0.6 per cent.”

Mr Patton said violent crime is the priority for police.

“The priorities seem pretty clear to me, it’s those high impact, high harm crimes; home invasions, carjackings, assaults, robberies,” he said.

The statistics:

Home invasions: UP – 224 in 2018-19, up from 208 the previous year.

Carjackings: UP – 297 in 2018-19, up from 227 the previous year.

Robbery: UP – 3429 in 2018-19, up from 3180 the previous year.

Family related incidents: UP – Increased by 6.4% to 1,253 incidents per 100,000 population.

Burglary: DOWN – Decreased by 11.2 per cent. 38,811 incidents in 2018-19, compared to 43,522 the year before.

Stalking and harassment: UP – increased from 11,728 in 2017-19 to 12,352 in the year ending June 30, 2019.

Homicide: DOWN – 185 offences in 2018-19, down from 2019 in the previous year.

Press PLAY below for the full interview.