Bass Coast bucks lower crime trend: up 5.1%

THE statistics don’t lie: South Gippsland is a safer place to live than Bass Coast, but together the region is twice as safe as Latrobe City.

In the latest Crime Statistics Agency data for the year ending December 2021, just released on Thursday, March 17, Bass Coast had a crime rate of 5569 incidents per 100,000, South Gippsland had 3887 incidents per 100,000 but Latrobe City recorded 10,489 incidents per 100,000.

It means Latrobe City has arguably the highest crime rate of any local government area (LGA) in Victoria outside of the City of Melbourne with 14,717 incidents per 100,000.

Despite that, Latrobe City had the lowest number of criminal incidents in eight years in 2021, down to 7999 criminal incidents where the number was 9621 in 2020 and 10,101 in 2019.

You’ve got to go all the way back to 2014 to find the most recent year below 8000 incidents of crime in Latrobe City.

Bass Coast hit an all-time-high of 2149 criminal incidents is 2021, up 5.1% as compared with 2044 in 2020 while South Gippsland is well down, to 1187 criminal incidents in the year, compared to 1255 in 2020, a fall of 5.4% but the rise in ‘Family Incidents’ in South Gippsland, up 18.1%, is a worrying development.

This was against a backdrop of a dramatic reduction in the offence rate per 100,000 in Victoria, down from 8184 offences per 100,000 in 2020 to 7157 offences per 100,000 in 2021.

The Crime Statistics Agency (CSA) released the Victorian recorded crime statistics for the year ending December 31, 2021 today.

The rate of recorded offences decreased 12.6% to 7157.2 per 100,000 Victorians in the last 12 months, as did the number of offences, down 12.8% to 477,999. This decrease was driven by Breach of Chief Health Officer (CHO) directions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, property and deception related offences and drug offences.

The victimization rate decreased by 3.3% to 3000.2 reports per 100,000 Victorians and is the lowest ever reported by the CSA.

The number of person-related victim reports also decreased (down 3.6% to 200,371), to its lowest level since 2011, as did the number of organisation reports (down 9.6% to 65,194).

This is the lowest number of organisations as victims of crime the CSA has reported.

These decreases for person-related victim reports were driven by acquisitive crime types, all property and deception offence types decreased in the last 12 months.

In the 12 months to December 31, 2021 the criminal incident rate decreased 13.0% to 5232.4 per 100,000 Victorians as did the number of incidents, down 13.2% to 349,452 incidents.

Alleged offender incidents decreased 18.9% to 162,435 in the last 12 months, as did the rate down 18.8% to 2767.6 per 100,000.

This decrease was driven by fewer Breach of CHO directions offences, drug offences and acquisitive crime types. On the other hand, breach family violence order offences increased (up 6.3%), as did common assault and criminal damage offences.

Family incidents decreased 1.5% in the last 12 months to 91,144 incidents, this is the first decrease since 2017. The rate of family incidents also decreased in the last 12 months, down 1.2% to 1,364.7 incidents per 100,000 Victorians, also the first decrease since 2017. 

CSA Chief Statistician Fiona Dowsley said that “decreases in acquisitive crime such as thefts and burglaries have driven the victimization rate down in the last 12 months to the lowest levels ever reported by the CSA.”

”As COVID-19-related health responses and restrictions have evolved there have continued to be fewer Breaches CHO directions offences recorded in the past 12 months” Ms Dowsley said.

Local crime figures

Bass Coast: The total number of criminal incidents in Bass Coast was up by 5.1% from 2044 incidents in 2020 to 2149 in 2021 with charges laid in 38% of those cases. The number of ‘Family Incidents’ was also up, by 2.7% from 896 in 2020 to 920 in 2021.

South Gippsland: The total number of criminal incidents in South Gippsland were down by 5.4% from 1255 in 2020 to 1187 in 2021, the lowest in three years, with charges laid in 47% of those cases. The number of ‘Family Incidents’ was however well up, by 18.1% from 459 in 2020 to 542 in 2021 which may also have been the result of an increased law-enforcement effort targeting family incidents.