The number of victims of certain property crimes recorded by police, including motor vehicle theft and burglary, increased for the second year in a row in 2022, according to figures released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
William Milne, ABS head of crime and justice statistics, said; “Victims of property crimes dropped to a record low in 2020, coinciding with the introduction of COVID-19 restrictions.”
“Over the past two years, the numbers of recorded victims have been coming back up but are still lower than in 2019,” Mr Milne said.
Of the three types of property crime, motor vehicle theft saw the largest proportional increase of 11 per cent (up to 55,037 victims) in 2022. This was followed by burglary up 9 per cent (up to 151,200 victims) and other theft which increased by 8 per cent (up to 475,725 victims). Other theft includes offences like retail theft.
The rise in property crimes in 2022 are notably higher than the increases reported in 2021, which ranged between 1 and 4 per cent.
The number of sexual assaults recorded by police also increased in 2022, up 3 per cent to 32,146 victim-survivors.
“We found that most victim-survivors were female (84% or 26,967 victims). We also found that victim-survivors were most commonly aged between 10 and 17 years when the sexual assault occurred (42% or 13,439 victims),” Mr Milne said.
