Property crime rises

The rate of home break-in and motor vehicle theft rose over the past year, according to figures released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

William Milne, ABS head of crime statistics, said: ‘The proportion of households that were broken into rose from 1.8 per cent in 2022-23 to 2.1 per cent in 2023-24.

‘This was an extra 32,000 households, bringing the total number up to 218,000 in 2023-24.’

Of the households that experienced break-in, three in four (75 per cent) reported the incident to police.

One in five (21 per cent) were broken into multiple times.

Meanwhile, the rate of motor vehicle theft rose from 0.5 per cent to 0.7 per cent.

‘An estimated 72,000 motor vehicles were stolen in 2023-24, which is about 17,000 more than in 2022-23,’ said Mr. Milne.

Just over half of the motor vehicles (54 per cent) were stolen from a residential location, while around a third (32 per cent) were stolen from the street.

The rate of other household crimes – including attempted break-in, theft from a motor vehicle, malicious property damage, and other theft – remained the same as the last survey.

‘In terms of personal crimes, rates of physical and threatened assault, sexual assault and robbery, all stayed the same between 2022-23 and 2023-24,’ said Mr. Milne.

The Crime Victimisation Survey covers a selected range of personal and household crimes. It includes the socio-demographic characteristics of victims, whether the most recent incident was reported to police, and other characteristics of the most recent incident.

More information about the 2023-24 survey results can be found in Crime Victimisation.