Extract from ABC News
Analysis
Queensland is frequently portrayed as being in the grips of a worsening crime epidemic, largely due to a growing cohort of seemingly uncontrollable youths.
The data on the state's crime rates is freely available, but the picture it paints is far more nuanced than what some media reports would imply.
Is crime getting worse?
Monthly figures from the Queensland Police Service shows that over the past 20 years, crime rates have decreased for nearly all categories.
Notable exceptions include rape, assault and shop theft, which all saw significant increases, but the long-term crime trend is overwhelmingly downwards.
The short-term trend, however, tells a different story.
The rate of break-ins has doubled since July 2020, from 37 offences per 100,000 people in the population, compared to last month's rate of 74 offences per 100,000.
But this increase comes off the back of the COVID-19 lockdown period, when the break-in rate plummeted 59 per cent between March and July 2020.
This same pattern is reflected in other categories like car theft rates, which fell 51 per cent between March and July 2020 before making a resurgence to pre-pandemic levels.
But despite the short-term increases across some categories in the post-lockdown period, it does not change the overall long-term downwards trajectory.
Are young people behind the crimes?
Queenslanders aged between 10 and 17 commit more crimes than the general population, a trend that is echoed across every state.
But data from the Bureau of Statistics shows the gap has been rapidly closing as the rate of youth offending continues to fall.
Twelve years ago, there was a 31.5 per cent gap between the youth offender crime rate and the general population, but in the 2021-2022 financial year it shrunk to 5.5 per cent.
The types of crimes committed differed between the general population and youth offenders, with their rate of robberies nearly four times higher and break-ins three times higher.
The rate of homicides was similar between youth offenders and the general population.
In the 2021-2022 financial year, the largest cohort of criminals was the 20-24 age bracket, which made up for more than 15 per cent of offenders.
In Queensland, 23.2 per cent of youth offenders had committed three crimes or more, with 61.8 per cent being one-off offenders.
Is Queensland worse than other states?
According to the Bureau of Statistics, Queensland had the third highest rate of crime in Australia, behind New South Wales and the Northern Territory, which far outstripped other jurisdictions.
In the 2021-2022 financial year, Queensland's crime rate was 1,761.9 per 100,000 people, compared with 1,891.9 in NSW and 4,061.5 in the NT.
Since 2008, Queensland has remained decidedly middle of the pack, jostling for third and fourth place with states such as Tasmania.
In 2022, Queensland was third place in terms of its proportion of repeat youth offenders.
During that time the NT has consistently had higher crime rates, while the ACT has consistently had lower crime rates than the rest of the country.
Repeat offending a big issue
Voice for Victims campaigner Ben Cannon said he was heartened to hear that youth crime rates had fallen in the long-term.
But Mr Cannon said in his view there was much more to be done to reduce Queensland's rate of youth offending.
"That is excellent to hear we're going down, but I think the community sentiment is that they're feeling at the mercy of some of these criminals," he said.
"Repeat offending, in my view, is one of the biggest issues we've got, where we don't have a good framework to capture these young criminals and put them on a different path."
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