Victorians less likely to be victims of crime today than in last 15 years – The Age

Chief statistican Fiona Dowsley said it was "certainly not" the case that the overall crime rate had risen in the past 12 months, although she pointed to a sharp increase in the number of family violence incidents recorded.

Family-related crimes increased by 8.6 per cent in the past 12 months to 82,652 incidents.

The rate of family violence also increased, by 6.4 per cent, reaching 1253.1 incidents per 100,000 people.

The agency, which uses Victoria Police data, said the state had recorded the highest number of unique alleged offenders or 84,989 individuals in the 12 months to June, which equates to about one alleged criminal for each 78 Victorians.

But this rise was accompanied by the lowest "victimisation rate" on record, which could be explained by the rise in "victimless crimes", or crimes against the state, like people breaching court orders.

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"In terms of the overall crime that's occured, that's obviously pretty stable," Ms Dowsley said.

"We are seeing record numbers of alleged offenders being processed by Victoria Police and the average age of these alleged offenders has been increasing," Ms Dowsley said.

"In terms of the victimisation rate [falling], that's unequivocally a good thing."

The average age of offenders is at an all-time high, with men 34.2 years old, and women 33.3 years old at the time of their alleged crimes.

A recent Ipsos study showed Victorians were more worried about crime than people in any other state, despite crime rates falling.

Forty per cent of Victorian respondents to a national survey nominated crime as their biggest worry, compared with 24 per cent in other states, where residents were more concerned about healthcare and the cost of living.

Victoria Police Deputy Commissioner Shane Patton, speaking with Police Minister Lisa Neville as the statistics were being released on Thursday morning, welcomed the drop in residential burglaries, which were down 11.2 per cent to 26,444 cases the lowest on record.

Victoria Police Minister Lisa Neville Credit:AAP

However, other crimes continue to preoccupy police, like carjackings, aggravated burglaries and rammings. While less common, they had a bigger impact on people.

"Its an absolute priority," he said. "This is what were putting all our attempts into. We know they are crimes that the public are very frightened of and rightly so."

Early on Thursday, a police officer and a teenage girl were hospitalised after being hit by an allegedly stolen car driven by a 19-year-old man north of Geelong.

The police officer was left with a fractured leg.

"Thats what confronts out members everyday," Mr Patton said.

"One every day is virtually occuring. Thats happening on a daily basis. Thats frightening."

In terms of young offenders, he said there were fewer criminals, but those who were offending were committing more crimes until they were arrested.

"There's a small core group of youths who continue to commit serious and regular crimes," Ms Neville said.

The question now, she said, was what authorities could do to help them. Getting them off the streets and into education or training was not working for this group.

"These kids seem to not care."

Opposition police spokesman David Southwick said the figures showed the Andrews government had no answer to crime increases.

"Daniel Andrews and Labor have no plan to keep families safe in their homes, take guns and drugs off our streets, and save young people from a life of crime," he said.

"Todays crime statistics show why Victoria has the worst perception of safety in the nation and this will continue until Daniel Andrews puts community safety first."

Bianca Hall is a senior reporter for The Age. She has previously worked in the Canberra bureau as immigration correspondent, Sunday political correspondent and deputy editor.

Erin covers crime for The Age. Most recently she was a police reporter at the Geelong Advertiser.

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Victorians less likely to be victims of crime today than in last 15 years - The Age

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