Why This Report Exists

Question:
How has crime in Victoria changed over time — and are we actually holding offenders accountable?

In this short presentation, I explore three angles using publicly available data from the Crime Statistics Agency (Victoria), year ending June 2025:

• Property crime trends (motor vehicle theft, burglary / break & enter)
  
• Family violence vs non-family violence incidents
  
• Whether incidents lead to charges being laid

This is not just “is crime up or down.”
It’s: what kind of harm is happening, and what happens after?

Property Crime in Victoria

Property crime is highly visible and costly.

We’ll look at how two classic high-impact offence types have changed over time:

• Motor vehicle theft
  
• Burglary / break & enter

Interpretation — Property Crime

• Motor vehicle theft shows a long-term decline and then levels off, rather than endlessly spiking.
  
• Burglary / break & enter also trends downward over the long run.
  
• Household-targeted crime is still serious, but the long-term pattern is not “out of control.”

Family Violence vs Non-Family Violence

Not all harm happens in public.
Victoria separately tracks incidents that are flagged as “family violence related.”

Here we compare over time:

• Family violence related incidents
  
• Non-family violence incidents

Interpretation — Family Violence

• Family-violence-related incidents remain persistently high across years.
  
• They do not fall in the same clear way some property crimes do.
  
• This suggests a public safety problem that is ongoing, private, and extremely hard to police with simple deterrence.

Are Offenders Being Dealt With?

Volume of crime is only part of the story.

We also care about accountability: does an incident actually lead to charges being laid against an offender?

Using CSA “investigation outcomes,” we estimate what share of recorded incidents each year ended with “Charges laid.”

Interpretation — Accountability

• The “charges laid” rate is clearly below 100%.
• That means thousands of recorded incidents each year do not immediately result in charges.
• This reflects complexity: evidence, victim cooperation, investigation time, and system capacity all matter.

Putting It Together

From these views:

• Some traditional property crimes (like motor vehicle theft and burglary / break & enter) have eased over the long term, not exploded.
• Family-violence-related incidents remain stubbornly high. This is different: it’s about harm inside households.
• A meaningful share of incidents never gets to “charges laid,” which signals limits in the system’s ability to pursue every case.

Key message: Victoria’s crime story in 2025 is not just “more crime vs less crime.” It’s: - What kind of harm is happening? - Who is most affected (households vs families)? - And can the justice system actually respond to all of it?

Data Sources

Crime Statistics Agency Victoria. (2025). Criminal Incidents, year ending June 2025. Tables 01, 03, and 04 (offence trends, family violence flag, investigation outcomes). State of Victoria, Australia.