Story

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February 2026. I arrived in Melbourne as an international student and moved to Meadow Heights, near the Broadmeadows and Coolaroo stations everyone warned me about. On my way home one day, a couple of men stopped me and asked for a pack of cigarettes. When I said no, they demanded money to buy one. I walked away as fast as I could, and they followed me with knives in their hands until I reached a street with houses and people around. I wasn’t hurt, but alone in a new country, I never reported it. So how dangerous is my area, really? The five steps zoom from the whole state down to someone like me. (Full account: My story tab.)
What the data says: overall, Hume is below the state average (#30 of 78 councils). But the crimes that match what happened to me are not: robbery is 15% above the state rate and threatening behaviour 27% above, and Broadmeadows is Hume’s #2 suburb for recorded crime. Red = Hume, blue = Victoria. My own encounter is not in any of these numbers: I never reported it.

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1The reputation: how does Hume rank? Hume ranks #30 of 78 councils: 6,194 vs 6,464 incidents per 100k across Victoria (year to June 2026).

2Inside Hume: is it my suburbs? (incident counts) My three suburbs hold 24% of Hume’s recorded incidents. Broadmeadows ranks #2 of 26 suburbs.

3Where it happens: share of incidents by location Streets and footpaths, where I was followed: 18.5% of Hume incidents vs 19.1% across Victoria. Train stations: 2.7% vs 2.6%.

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4Is it getting worse? Robbery and other crimes against the person Robbery, what happened to me: Hume 38.3 per 100k vs 33.3 for Victoria (15% higher, #10 of 65 councils), up 5% since 2017. Use the menu to switch offence.

5Who becomes a victim? Someone like me? People aged under 25 make up 18.6% of Hume’s person victim reports vs 17.4% across Victoria. Men are 56.1% of Hume victims.

My story

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What happened on my walk home

I arrived in Melbourne in late February 2026 as an international student and moved to Meadow Heights, in the City of Hume. The nearest train stations are Broadmeadows and Coolaroo. Before I had even settled in, people told me those stations and the streets around them were dangerous.

On my way home one day, a couple of men came up to me and asked if I had a pack of cigarettes. When I said no, they asked me for money to buy them a pack. I refused again and kept walking as fast as I could. They followed me for a while, and they had knives in their hands. They only left when I reached a more residential area, with houses and people all around. I got away without being harmed.

I never reported it. I was new to the country, I had no one here to guide or support me, and I did not know what reporting would involve or whether it would make any difference. That feeling of being on my own is part of why I wanted to tell this story.

What I wanted to know

  • Is Hume as dangerous as its reputation? Step 1 ranks every Victorian council.
  • Is it my suburbs specifically? Step 2 looks inside Hume.
  • Where does crime happen: stations, streets or homes? Step 3.
  • Are crimes like the one I faced, robbery and threats, becoming more common? Step 4.
  • Are people like me, young men, more likely to be victims? Step 5.

What I found

  • Overall, Hume is not one of Victoria’s highest-crime councils: it ranks #30 of 78 (6,194 incidents per 100,000 people vs 6,464 for Victoria).
  • But robbery is 15% above the state rate (#10 of 65 councils), and stalking, harassment and threatening behaviour is 27% above. These are the crimes that match what happened to me.
  • Broadmeadows is Hume’s #2 suburb for recorded crime. My three suburbs together account for 24% of Hume’s incidents.
  • Streets and footpaths, where I was followed, account for 18.5% of Hume’s incidents (19.1% across Victoria). Train stations account for 2.7% (2.6% across Victoria). So the station areas’ reputation is not explained by where crime is recorded; it is the type of crime, robbery and threats, that stands out.
  • Men make up 56.1% of Hume’s person victims.

My encounter is not in any of these numbers, because I never reported it. Many newcomers and international students are in the same position, so the recorded numbers are likely an undercount.

About & references

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About this story

Author: Axel Jaison (s4226031)

This dashboard follows one question from my own experience. After arriving in Melbourne in February 2026 and living in Meadow Heights (City of Hume), I was told Broadmeadows and Coolaroo stations were dangerous, especially at night, and I had encounters there that I never reported. Each chart zooms one level closer: from Victoria, to Hume, to my suburbs, to the kinds of places and people affected.

What the data can and cannot show

  • Crime rates are criminal incidents per 100,000 residents, so large and small councils can be compared fairly.
  • Melbourne CBD is excluded from the ranking by default, because few people live there compared with the number who visit, which inflates its rate. Use the “With CBD” button to see it.
  • Suburb figures (step 2) are counts, because the CSA does not publish suburb populations.
  • Victim shares (step 5) are each group’s share of person victim reports, not population-adjusted risk. CSA publishes age and sex separately, so “men aged 22” cannot be isolated; the youngest published group is 0 to 24.
  • Time of day is not published, so the fear of “at night” cannot be tested with these tables.
  • Recorded crime is only what reaches police. My own encounters are not in any of these numbers, and many people, particularly newcomers and international students, never report.

Data

Tools

R, flexdashboard, plotly, readxl, dplyr, tidyr, stringr.

Acknowledgements

Data are released by the Crime Statistics Agency under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence.