Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has shown South Australia experienced significant drops in crime victimisation rates across a number of key areas in 2023-24.

The ABS yesterday released its annual Crime Victimisation survey figures, comparing national and state and territory crime victimisation rates in states and territories across Australia.

South Australia’s crime victimisation rates were lower than the national rates for the majority of crime types, including break-ins, threatened assault, and malicious property damage.

The state also recorded drops in the number of households experiencing break-ins, attempted break-ins and malicious property damage compared to the previous financial year. Break-ins fell by 300 to 11,600 households, attempted break-ins dropped by 400 to 10,400 and malicious property damage fell 3,400 to 23,400.

This comes on the back of the recent ABS Recorded Crime – Offenders statistics which showed a drop in both the young offenders rate and number of overall offenders in South Australia in 2023-24.

The statistics confirm there were 1,812 youth offenders aged between 10 and 17 years in South Australia proceeded against by police in 2023-24, a 17 per cent decrease on the previous year.

South Australia had 1,028 youth offenders per 100,000 people aged between 10 and 17 years, less than half the rate of youth offenders in New South Wales, and significantly lower than the national average of 1,764 youth offenders per 100,000 people aged between 10 and 17 years.

The young offender rate for 2023-24 is half of what it was in 2018-19.