In the year ending March 2019 Victoria had the lowest number of youth alleged offender incidents (10–17 years) and rate per 100,000 Victorians in 10 years. In contrast, alleged offender incidents for those aged 18 year and over increased during this time.
This spotlight found that while there has been a decrease in youth alleged offending there has been an increase in the proportion of Crimes against the person offences being committed by these young people.
Since the year ending March 2010 the proportion of female youth offenders has been increasing, however males are still the majority. In the last 12 months male youth offenders were more likely to have a principal offence of Criminal damage, and females were more likely to have a principal offence of Steal from a retail store.
The number of youth victims associated with youth offenders has increased over time. The main principal offence types for these victims were Common assault, Serious assault and Aggravated robbery.
A data visualisation has been produced along with commentary in this spotlight. The key feature of this visualisation is it provides access to the youth alleged offender information highlighted in this spotlight for most of the Victorian local government areas.
Further information can be found in the latest crime statistics quarterly release, available to download from the CSA website:
http://www.crimestatistics.vic.gov.au/crime-statistics/latest-crime-data/ (External link)