Youth Alleged Offender Incidents — Methodology and Sources
What this measures
The number of alleged offender incidents in Victoria involving a person aged 10-17, by year ending December.
An "alleged offender incident" counts the offender, not the offence — one young person allegedly committing multiple offences in a single incident counts once.
How values are derived
From Vic Crime Statistics Agency's Data Tables Alleged Offender Incidents Visualisation XLSX (year ending December 2025 release). Table 02 breaks the count down by Year × Sex × Age Group. The series here sums Females + Males across the three youth age bands (10-11, 12-14, 15-17 years) for each year ending December:
| Year (ending Dec) | 10-11 | 12-14 | 15-17 | Total 10-17 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 447 | 4,829 | 13,556 | 18,832 |
| 2017 | 362 | 5,161 | 12,927 | 18,450 |
| 2018 | 357 | 4,718 | 11,982 | 17,057 |
| 2019 | 320 | 4,665 | 13,145 | 18,130 |
| 2020 | 207 | 4,293 | 14,020 | 18,520 |
| 2021 | 212 | 4,084 | 11,008 | 15,304 |
| 2022 | 243 | 5,370 | 11,502 | 17,115 |
| 2023 | 386 | 6,222 | 14,506 | 21,114 |
| 2024 | 299 | 6,511 | 16,643 | 23,453 |
| 2025 † | 203 | 6,617 | 17,066 | 23,886 |
(†) From 1 October 2025, alleged offenders aged 10-11 are excluded from CSA's offender-based statistics following legislative change. The Dec-2025 10-11 figure (203) therefore reflects only nine months. Historically 10-11s have been a small share (~1-2%) of total youth incidents, so the headline 10-17 trend is robust without that band.
Reading the line
- 2016 → 2018: a gradual decline from ~18.8k to ~17.1k.
- 2019 → 2020: flat around 18.1-18.5k.
- 2021: sharp drop to 15.3k — coinciding with COVID restrictions, lockdowns, and reduced school/community presence.
- 2022 → 2025: rapid escalation back through ~17k, ~21k, ~23.5k to 23.9k. The 2024 and 2025 numbers are the highest in the last decade and have driven significant political attention to youth crime in Victoria.
Caveats
- "Alleged offender" counts the person on suspicion, not the conviction. A person who is later acquitted is still counted in the year of the incident.
- The same person can appear in multiple years (or even multiple times in the same year, if their incidents are separated in time).
- Methodology break from 1 October 2025 (10-11s excluded). Pre/post change is not strictly comparable for the 10-11 band; 12-17 is unaffected.