00:00Now there's been a lot of talk about the crime crisis here in Victoria and a lot of action from the State Government
00:07but these latest crime statistics really back that rhetoric up.
00:11In some cases we've seen crime numbers, so incident offence numbers, breaking records,
00:17the highest they've been since records began 20 years ago.
00:20I'll run you through some of the headline figures.
00:22So the crime rate, so it's adjusted for population growth, that's up 14%.
00:27Family violence order breaches, that's up 17%.
00:31Thefts from cars, that's up 39%.
00:33We've heard that number plate thefts are among those thefts.
00:36And car thefts, so the stealing of the actual car itself, up 42%.
00:41We've also heard of a big rise in retail theft.
00:44We've been hearing about this from some working in the retail sector for some time
00:48but those figures are up 27%.
00:50Let's take a listen now to the police talking about that issue just a short time ago.
00:54Certainly the cost of living is at play here.
00:57Drugs, technology, organised crime, but in particular recidivism, remain significant drivers for our crime rates.
01:07Our intelligence shows repertofences are responsible for a significant proportion of all crime here in Victoria.
01:16The Victorian Government this year has introduced a machete ban, so that came into effect and is in effect now.
01:23There's an amnesty running at the moment.
01:25And police have revealed that they've seized 11,000 knives or edged weapons, they call them, since that process began.
01:33They've also said that controlled weapon offences are up 11%.
01:37We've seen some very graphic and violent crimes happening around here in Victoria in relation to machetes.
01:43So there's machete bins at police stations around the state and that's aimed at starting to stem the flow of those weapons.
01:50Now police did tell us today that they've got a new target.
01:53They're aiming to reduce the number of serious and violent crimes by 5% before this time next year.
02:00So when they next stand up and talk about the crime statistics, they'll expect some of these figures to be 5% lower.
02:06There is no doubt this will be a challenge, but we are confident that in the foreseeable future the crime will reduce
02:13and our community remains and feels safe as possible.
02:19The Victorian Government has been making big moves to try to tackle this crime problem here.
02:23They've been changing bail settings and those bail settings will change progressively up until about March next year
02:29in addition to banning machetes.
02:31But we're hearing from police that they also want a bigger focus on prevention
02:35and we were told today that they'll have some kind of announcement and a bit of a shift of their focus within the next couple of weeks.
02:41We're told by October sometime.
02:43So it's very clear at the moment that while these crime statistics, they are to a degree I'm sure for many a bit alarming,
02:49we're told that it's a work in progress to start bringing them down.
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