##MP##
The State Government’s Statistician’s Office has released Cairns crime figures for the 2020-21 financial year, which reveal mixed results for the lockdown-impacted period.
Overall offending was down compared to the same period the previous year, driven by a drop in robberies, theft, unlawful entry, handling stolen goods and drug crimes.
However, offences against people were up, including assaults, stalking and sexual offences.
##BA##
Key findings for Cairns
The count and rate of all reported offences was down 11.8% on the previous year, to 32,603.
Robberies, both armed and unarmed were down by 23.6%.
Unlawful entry was down 22%, unlawful use of a motor vehicle was virtually unchanged, down 1%.
Offences against the person were up more than 13% to 3,495.
Of those, assaults were up by 16.5% to 2,475.
There were 587 sexual offences, up 23.8%
Of those, 144 were rape or attempted rape.
For stalking offences, there was a 92.9% hike in 12 months and a 173.9% rise over the past nine years.
There were 3,088 breaches of domestic violence protection orders, up by almost 20 per cent.
Statewide, the number of unique offenders - including young offenders - decreased.
Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll said that’s the result of the amount of work being performed by police across the state.
“The data from the latest crime report supports what we have been striving to achieve as an organisation,” she said.
“In the past two years, an extraordinary amount of work has been targeted towards youth crime, and we can see that reflected in the decrease in unique offenders.
“However, we know there is more work to be done, and the QPS remains committed to keeping communities safe.
##PQ##
Police Minister Mark Ryan said that any instance of criminal offending is unacceptable.
“For every crime there is a victim and even one instance of crime is one too many,” the Minister said.
“That’s why we never rest when to comes to addressing crime and youth crime.”
Regional statistics regarding youth crime weren’t included in the report.
You can view it here.
Main points
- The Queensland Statistician has released its annual crime report
- In Cairns, property offences were down but offences on people were higher in 2020/21 compared with 2019/20
- Statewide, the number of youth offenders decreased
