What is driving increases in offending amongst Victorian youth?

Agenda Introduction to the Agency Context Findings Implications & Next Steps

Introduction to the Agency Commenced public operations on 1 January 2015. Crime Statistics Act 2014 “(1) The Chief Statistician has the following functions – (a) to publish and release statistical information relating to crime in Victoria. (b) to undertake research into and analysis of crime and criminal justice issues and trends in Victoria.” Established in 2014 and commenced public operations on 1 January this year. Business unit within the Victorian Department of Justice and Regulation. 2 key teams within the agency – one team produces our quarterly statistics and works on data development and my area is responsible for research and evaluation projects. Crime Statistics Act 2014 establishes the role of the Chief Statistician to: - publish and release statistical information relating to crime in Victoria. - undertake research into and analysis of crime and criminal justice issues and trends in Victoria. Receive law enforcement data from Victoria Police on a quarterly basis – and our data holdings go back to about 2005, which is good because it means we’ve got some time series that we can work with. - The over-arching objectives of the agency are to make information about recorded crime more accessible and better understood – and to support evidence-based policy and decision making.

CSA service offering Release of quarterly recorded crime statistics and data tools on our website. Customised data supply. Regular publication of research papers. Collaborative research projects. Customised research and evaluation projects on request. - Research papers are generally aligned with our research agenda – though we are flexible as issues of interest and policy relevance arise unexpectedly over time. - Contributed analysis to the Royal Commission into Family Violence A series of publications on drug use and possession use Youth crime

Context Decreases in overall volume of youth crime in NSW, UK, USA, Canada. Australia-wide, ABS identifies a decrease in number of youth offenders over the past few years. Context: At least partly triggered by riots at the Moomba Festival in March, which “began at Federation Square and continued up Swanston Street, with up to 200 people wielding chairs as weapons and brawling in the streets” (news.com.au article May 24, ‘Police arrest two dozen over Moomba riots” This, along with increased ‘car jackings’ in Melbourne’s suburbs, ramped up the pressure on government more broadly and police more specifically to do something about this perceived increase in young offenders Media outlets linked these events with the Apex gang, and there have been references to many of the events being perpetrated by young men of Somali or Sudanese descent. Victoria Police and the Herald Sun announced they would hold a “youth justice summit”, which was held on July 21. It appears nothing concrete has emerged at this point in time, though the Premier did say three or four concrete changes or reforms would emerge over time.

Youth crime in Victoria Context Youth crime in Victoria to inform public debate about the evidence on youth crime, the Research and Evaluation team at the CSA put out three of our ‘In Fact’ papers, which are short and concise publications designed to be put together and published at short notice, in response to this sort of thing. The statistics I’ll be sharing with you are a mixture of those publications with some additional unpublished work which we have done in the time since We also have another publication out today on youth crime – at the end I will share some of the findings of that paper as well.

Findings Annual number of unique offenders aged under 25 and 25 and over, July 2006 to June 2015 NUMBERS, 10 TO 14: 28,494 unique offenders in 2006 to 17,830 in 2011

Findings Number of unique offenders aged 10 to 14 in 2006 and 2011 NUMBERS, 10 TO 14: 109,676 offences in 2006 to 96,337 in 2011

Findings Number of offences committed by the two 10-14 cohorts, 2006 to 2015 NUMBERS, 15 to 19: 44,949 unique offenders in 2006 to 44,607 in 2011

Findings Number of unique offenders aged 15 to 19 in 2006 and 2011 NUMBERS, 15 to 19: 196,518 offences to 221,623 in 2011

Findings Number of offences committed by the two 15-19 cohorts, 2006 to 2015

Findings Proportion of 10 to 19 year old offenders who had 1, 2, 3 to 5, 6 to 10, and 11 or more incidents recorded

Offence types Proportion of 10 to 19 year old offenders who had at least one of each offence division recorded The increases in justice procedures

Findings Proportion of offenders who committed at least one offence, by selected offence subdivision, percentage point change from 2007/08 to 2015/16

Findings Volume of offences committed by young offenders, by selected offence subdivision, percentage change from 2007/08 to 2015/16

Findings Percentage point change, proportion of first offence ever recorded, 2007/08 to 2015/16

Findings Percentage point change, proportion of outcome to first offence ever recorded, 2007/08 to 2015/16

Summary of findings 10-14 year olds 15-19 year olds Number of offenders and offences  number of offenders No change in number of offences committed Small  in young offenders with multiple incidents No change in number of offenders  in number of offences committed Demographic characteristics Small  female & Indigenous Small  offenders from least disadvantaged postcodes Small  in offenders from mid-disadvantage postcodes Small  Indigenous Offence types  theft offences  violent offences  drug offences The people offending are very similar (in the ways that we can see), it is the manner of the offending which seems to be changing. Postcodes are split into three groups 10 to 14 year old offenders: Increase in proportion of females and those that identify as Indigenous Decrease in proportion of offenders living in the least disadvantaged areas 15 to 19 year old offenders: Increase in proportion identifying as Indigenous Increase in proportion of offenders living in the middle 4 deciles of disadvantage

What we still don’t know… What caused these changes? Are there indications of increased organised crime among youth offenders? Are police more likely to detect recidivist offending? Are police targeting specific, more serious offence types? Are the small group of high-frequency offenders experiencing worsening risk factors for youth offending? Do the majority of high-frequency youth offenders desist from crime in late adolescence or early adulthood? NSW: property crime decrease, serious assault decrease since 2008 Anti-social behaviour, association with anti-social peers, anti-social cognition and anti-social personality pattern, level of education or engagement with other learning opportunities, unemployment, substance abuse, relationship problems, mental illness, intellectual disability, Indigenous status, ethnicity, low socioeconomic status, homelessness, history of involvement in the child protection system. What drug types are leading the increase in drug use and possession offences – traditionally young people have offended using cannabis, however this does not take into account the increases we have seen in recent years with methamphetamine use

New publication 1997/98 birth cohort. First 8 years of offending. Beginning to explore patterns of offending frequency in more detail for young Victorian offenders. This is the first paper outlining our findings. Statistical techniques have shown sub-populations of offenders follow markedly different trajectories Large number of studies have been run, but not in Victoria These studies have found consistencies in the shape and number of groups The paper uses semi-parametric group based modelling to identify the latent offending trajectories of a cohort of Victorian offenders born over a two year period between April 1996 and March 1998, across the first eight years of their offending as recorded by Victoria Police

New publication Similar to other jurisdictions, we found…. Four groups: Low (88.7%) – doesn’t get above 0.36 events per year Adolescent limited (6.4%) rises to 3.1 events per year at age 15 before falling away Late developing (3.4%) still rising at age 17 at around 7.5 events per year High (1.6%) peaks at age 15 at around 11.6 events per year, before falling to a similar level to the late developing group Offenders who were male, identified as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, and who were living in the most disadvantaged areas at the beginning of their offending careers were more likely to be classified in a high frequency offending group.

www.crimestatistics.vic.gov.au/home/research+and+evaluation Paul Sutherland Analyst, Research and Evaluation paul.sutherland@crimestatistics.vic.gov.au 03 8684 1834 Melanie Millsteed Manager, Research and Evaluation melanie.millsteed@crimestatistics.vic.gov.au 03 8684 1828