Melbourne crime interactive: Track crime in your postcode over five years

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Victoria's crime rates by postcode

Fairfax Media has collated all crime data for every Victorian postcode for the past five years. See how your postcode compares to the rest of the state.

Wyndham Vale recorded the most murders in Victoria over the past year, more bikes than cars were stolen in Fitzroy and Lorne saw a sixfold increase in rape.

Kew recorded an eightfold increase in fraud during the year from April 2015 to March 2016, Frankston had the most sexual offences against children, while Broadmeadows accounted for almost half of all deliberately lit bushfires in Victoria.

And Kalorama, just north of Mount Dandenong, earned the mantle of Melbourne's safest suburb, with just 10 offences over the past year.

Today, Fairfax Media launches an interactive crime map that provides the most comprehensive information on criminal offending in every Victorian postcode over the past five years.

Enter your suburb or postcode below to find out about crime in your area

The interactive reveals the suburbs where burglaries are on the rise and whether those break-ins involved violence against the occupants.

It can be used to identify the neighbourhoods most vulnerable to car thefts, with more than 20,000 vehicles stolen across Victoria and contents taken from almost 58,000 cars in 2015/16.

Police at another Melbourne crime scene. Photo: Paul Harris

The interactive site can also uncover criminal activity that defies explanation and is almost impossible to predict.

Over the past five years, Moe in Gippsland was the only town in Victoria to record an offence of sabotage.
The Geelong suburb of Norlane was the hoaxing capital of the state last year, with almost one in six of the 307 offences recorded in the postcode.
There were 25 riot and affray offences in Port Fairy in 2016. None were recorded in the four previous years.
Richmond reported the only case of slavery and sexual servitude in the past five years.
More than half of the 2500 offences recorded in Mulgrave last year related to obtaining benefit by deception.

The interactive map is based on data obtained from the Crime Statistics Agency, which was established in 2014 to provide quarterly crime statistics and research on crime trends in Victoria.

The agency is provided with information on all criminal offences by Victoria Police.

Over the past five years, crime rates across Victoria have increased, particularly in Melbourne's outer suburbs and regional towns, where the scourge of methamphetamine addiction has had a devastating impact.

But the City of Melbourne has defied the upward trend by recording a 14 per cent fall in crime rates since 2012.

As Sydney and Brisbane grapple with drunken violence and the introduction of polarising lock-out laws, Melbourne now has fewer serious assaults and intoxication offences, despite more permanent residents and a surge in visitors.

The number of cases of drunk and disorderly conduct or offensive conduct have almost halved in the CBD postcode over the past four years, reaching a five-year low of 1387 cases in the year to March 2016.

However, assaults have increased in the surrounding postcodes, with Docklands, West Melbourne, North Melbourne and Parkville all recording a five-year high in assaults last year.

Lord Mayor Robert Doyle says a range of measures are responsible for the reduction in crime in the city, including a three-fold increase in the number of CCTV cameras, more police on the beat and improved relationships with licensed venues.

Cr Doyle also points to a cultural shift, which has included permanent funding of late-night performances in the CBD.

Since 2010, food sales in Melbourne's CBD have increased by 45 per cent, while alcohol sales have fallen by about 2 per cent.

While the city has become safer, many categories of crime have increased dramatically in other parts of the state.

Aggravated burglaries have surged by 39 per cent compared with four years ago, while the number of other burglaries rose 11 per cent over the same period.

About 6.5 per cent of burglaries last year were aggravated, although in some areas – such as Berwick, in Melbourne's south-east – one in five break-ins involved violence.

And while the otherwise low-crime area of Brighton experienced a five-year-low in burglaries, almost 15 per cent of those recorded were aggravated over the past year.

The crime categories that have increased the most over the past five years include breaches of family violence intervention orders, breaching bail conditions and receiving or handling stolen goods.