Page 1: The Big Picture

The Story: A Tale of Two Crime Types

The story of crime in post-pandemic Victoria is one of divergence. Using Melbourne as a proxy for state-wide trends, we see two different stories:

Crimes Against the Person (A): This category, which includes assault, saw a notable increase from 2019 to 2024.
Property & Deception (B): This category, including burglary, decreased. This may be due to factors like increased work-from-home arrangements.

This dashboard explores this shift across Victoria.

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Melbourne’s Offence Rate Trends (2019 vs 2024)

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Change in Melbourne Offence Rates (2019–2024)

Page 2: The Local Story

Where Personal Crime Rates Rose (2019 vs 2024)

This map shows the percentage change in Crimes Against the Person for every Local Government Area (LGA) from 2019 to 2024.

Red/Orange Areas: LGAs that saw a rise in personal crime rates.
Yellow Areas: LGAs that saw a fall in personal crime rates.

Click on any LGA to see the specific data for both personal and property crime.

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% Change in Crimes Against the Person (2019–2024)

Page 3: Connecting the Dots

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Property Crime vs. Unemployment: A Weak Link

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The “Why?”

This dashboard attempts to go beyond the headlines and find a deeper story. This chart plots the change in property crime against the change in the unemployment rate for each LGA.

Hypothesis: Did LGAs with worse economic outcomes (higher unemployment) also see a larger rise in property crime?

Finding: The plot shows a weak positive correlation. There are many LGAs where unemployment rose, but property crime still fell (bottom-right quadrant). This suggests that while a link might exist, it is not the only factor. Other socio-economic drivers are likely part of the story.

Data Sources (APA 7th Ed.)

Crime Statistics Agency. (2025). LGA Recorded Offences Year Ending December 2024 [Data set]. Crime Statistics Agency Victoria. https://www.crimestatistics.vic.gov.au/crime-statistics/download-crime-data (Accessed October 20, 2025)

Department of Employment and Workplace Relations. (2025). SALM - LGA estimates - December quarter 2024 [Data set]. DEWR. https://www.dewr.gov.au/employment-research/small-area-labour-markets (Accessed October 20, 2025)

Department of Transport and Planning. (2025). Vicmap Admin - Local Government Area (LGA) Polygon [Data set]. Land.Vic. https://discover.data.vic.gov.au/dataset/vicmap-admin-local-government-area-lga-polygon-aligned-to-property (Accessed October 20, 2025)