Crime Trends in Victoria

Nathan Boland

Introduction

This presentation provides an overview of crime trends with a focus on how Victoria’s COVID-19 lockdown has affected crime in Victoria. Age demographics, location and harm types are examined. The data is all collected from Crime Statistics Victoria, and contains data from 2015 to 2024.

The Victorian lockdowns in 2020 were among the most prolonged and restrictive lockdowns in the world. With 262 days of restrictions and lockdown in years 2020 and 2021 I beleive this would have played a major factor in crime rates during that time, as people were confined and frustrated, potentially leading to crime.

General Crime and Family Incident rate

  • Significant reduction of victim reports in 2020

  • Family incidents saw no major changes, and perhaps slightly plateaued during COVID

Offender Incidents

Proportion of Harm Types

Victim Reports and Offender Incidents by Age Group

  • All age groups seem to be affected proportionately even with the large overall change in 2020

Top 10 Areas with Highest Increase in Crime Rate: 2015 - 2024

Conclusion

  • The significant increase in offender incidents leads to the conclusion that the lockdown did heavily influence people commiting crimes, whereas the victim reports dropped and the family incidents remained unchanged.

  • While the lockdown seemed to affect all age groups equally, some specific areas saw a major increase compared to others, namely South Gippsland.

Thank You

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