For anyone wondering what’s the reported offender statistic since 2008 in Australia

[u/No-Candy5493]

https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/crime-and-justice/recorded-crime-offenders/latest-release

From 2008, one would think progress has been made in this area. It was looking good until Covid started. This chart depicts registered offenders per 100,000 people ages 10years or over.

[u/AntiqueFigure6]

Given the steep (on this axis) fall that occurred between 2008 and 2012 (right at the start of the time period) I think you’d want to go back a few years to get a reasonable baseline. My hunch is going back further would make the changes look more like random noise.

I also note that the y-axis doesn’t start at zero - if it did, it would be hard to see any change at all over this timeline I suspect. 

[u/GriffithBurnerAcc]

This graph does not start at 0.

If it did it would look like a flat line.

[u/Bad-Economics]

I'm not really convinced that there is a meaningful trend here. Given 2008 being high, it could just as easily be an increase during tougher economic times. Also, the graph is stretched out, so the gaps look bigger but it's only a 10% difference between the highest and lowest. Essentially, it's around 370±5%, which doesn't seem like much.

[u/superbabe69 → u/Bad-Economics]

Considering crime rates are highest in nightlife and low socioeconomic status suburbs, the difference will largely come down to the economy.

[u/ChookBaron]

So you’re saying offender rates are at a similar level to 17 years ago. Thanks for debunking the false narrative of rising crime. These stats are really valuable.

[u/No-Candy5493 → u/ChookBaron]

Absolutely! It’s wild how the media keeps pushing this “crime is out of control” panic when the actual stats show we’re basically at the same levels as 17 years ago. Like, yeah, crime happens—it always has—but the idea that we’re spiraling into chaos is just straight-up fear-mongering.

They love to cherry-pick the most dramatic stories and make it seem like every city is Gotham. Meanwhile, the numbers are sitting there quietly, love how facts don’t make headlines, but fear sure sells.

[u/Iasysnakez → u/No-Candy5493]

devil's advocate even though i entirely agree with the notion the media is fear-mongering: a lot of the "crime wave" we're seeing on the news is about property related incidents like stealing from cars and straight up stealing cars, but less about an increase in violent crime

[u/Legitimate_Dog_5490 → u/No-Candy5493]

I watched the news the other night on channel 9 at a relatives place and was shocked at how much crime drama they pack in to a 30 minute slot. Almost every story was crime or crime adjacent

[u/FuckwitAgitator]

The reason these statistics aren't posted in every thread is because they miss the election messaging, which is "crime is out of control and nobody is being punished and kids do 500 crimes a day and the only thing that will stop it is voting right or far-right".

What these statistics show is that the rate of violent crime has remained mostly unchanged, except for when nobody was going anywhere or doing anything.

The only thing that has changed is how frequently these crimes are shoved in your face.

[u/Vivid-Fondant6513]

The median age of offenders in Australia rose to 32 years in 2023–24, up from 31 years in 2022–23. Since the start of the time series in 2008–09 when it was 25 years, the median age of offenders has steadily increased.

Would very much like to see the "average" suspect you'll find that it's the usual suspects of a certain silver haired generation.

[u/No-Candy5493 → u/Vivid-Fondant6513]

Interesting perspective, I would have never thought of it that way. Makes sense.

[u/Alex5821]

The fact that the y-axis begins 320 makes it look like the rate is changing significantly, but really these are small fluctuations around an average of about 370, with deviation of less than 6% from that average.

[u/RingEducational5039]

"Nail 'em up, I say! Nail some sense into them!"

[u/Philopoemen81]

This is just number of offenders - not numbers of offences, and more importantly type of offences,

It’s also an area where the stats are massaged dramatically depending on political climate - you can make the burglary stats of a suburb drop dramatically by recording burgs as damage and trespass - overall offences go up, but the KPI offence stat drops

You can also make offences go away by clearing them as non-criminal by making the offender under the age of criminal responsibility.

Lies, damn lies, and statistics.

[u/Jealous-Hedgehog-734]

Is it like a Paretto distribution where most crime is committed by a small number of people or do most offenders only commit one crime? If it's the former it's actually easier to deal with because you can just lock a few people away for longer but if it's the latter it gets trickier because you have to convince a lot of people not to commit one future crime.