By TOM HAYES
LATROBE has been discovered to be the second worst local government area (LGA) for crime per population across Victoria’s 79 LGAs, a study from criminal lawyers Astor Legal has found.
Research spanning from July 2023 to June 2024 found Latrobe to have the second-worst incident rate per 100,000 people with 11,579, despite having the 18th most incidents across the state with 9098.
The only LGA with a higher crime rate per 100,000 people is Melbourne, which is substantially higher with 15,115 incidents per 100,000.
In surrounding regions, East Gippsland had the 13th worst crime rate, followed by Wellington (20th), Baw Baw (35th), Bass Coast (39th), and South Gippsland (42nd).
Astor Legal found that theft was easily the most common crime, making up 38 per cent of Victoria’s crimes. Making up the brunt of other incidents were breach of orders (12 per cent), assault/or related (11), burglary or breaking and entering (nine), and property damage (nine). The remaining 20 per cent of crimes included drug use/possession, weapons/explosive offences, sexual offences, deception, and other crimes.
However, in Latrobe that trend didn’t translate, with the state’s second most common crime, breach of orders, the most common. Specifically in Latrobe, the most common crime was family violence order breaches, with 1025.
Family violence order breaches was also the most common crime across East Gippsland (582 incidents), Baw Baw (472), Wellington (456), and Bass Coast (282), as well as 14 other LGAs.
Making up the top five most popular incidents in Latrobe includes, criminal damage (783 incidents), bail breaches (717), stealing from a motor vehicle (671), and other theft (602).
Of the 27,042 family violence order breaches across the state, Latrobe ranks highest with 1305 per 100,000 people.
The region also ranks worst for the state’s 16,864 bail breaches with 913 per 100,000 people, and the state’s 13,800 family violence/common assault incidents with 589 per 100,000 people.
Contributing to some of the region’s most common crimes, breaches of orders is up 17.6 per cent across the state since 2019, while in the same period, assault is up 8.3 per cent.
For more details on the research performed by Astor Legal, visit: astorlegal.com.au/
