Victoria’s record crime rates have led to an explosion in unsolved crimes, new statistics have revealed.
Crime statistics released on Thursday show that of the 627,268 criminal offences committed in Victoria in the year ending March 2025, more than 46 per cent remain unsolved.
That means there are 290,871 offences where the perpetrator has not been brought to justice.
While this number will undoubtedly go down as Victoria Police continues its work, it is currently 42 per cent higher than it was 12 months ago.
The increase in unsolved crimes comes despite Victoria Police revealing it had carried out almost 76,000 arrests in the past year, which they believe could be an all time record.
“Police recorded the most arrests since electronic records began in 1993, and most likely, in Victoria Police’s 172-year history,” Victoria Police said in a statement.
In the ten years since Labor came to power, the number of unsolved crimes has soared by 66.7 per cent – leaving more victims without justice, and more offenders without consequences.
According to the Victorian Opposition Leader Brad Battin, a former police officer, the surge in unsolved crimes shows the Allan government has lost control of law and order.
“This is what happens when a government loses control of crime – offenders know they won’t be caught, and victims know they won’t see justice,” Mr Battin said.
“Victoria Police are working night and day to keep our community safe – but they’re being let down by a soft-on-crime government that refuses to give them the resources or laws they need.”
Earlier on Thursday, Victorian Police Minister Anthony Carbines said while the crime rates were “unacceptable” the unique offender rate was stable, meaning the same number of people were committing additional offences.
Mr Carbines also pointed out that the statistics did not capture the impact of the Allan government’s changes to bail laws – which took effect on March 28.
“The government has acted, (and there has been) more offenders remanded than ever before since these changes took effect.
“We’ve seen a 100 per cent increase in young offenders remanded. We’ve seen a 31 per cent increase in adult offenders remanded.
“We will start to see those people unable to commit further offending. So I think we’ll start to see that change picked up in future quarters.”
The Police Minister also flagged the introduction of a new round of bail reforms, as well as other tough-on-crime measures such as so-called post and boast laws, which impose tougher penalties for offenders who “promote their misdeeds and their crimes” on social media.
“We also have the second tranche of our bail reforms coming after the parliamentary winter … which will be about high harm crimes, aggravated burglary, carjackings, home invasions,” Mr Carbines said.
“Where people commit those offences and repeat those offences, it’ll be extremely difficult to get bail, extremely difficult.
“We will also be bringing tougher measures, as you have seen, the crime statistics around retail crime, we cannot accept the growth in retail crime, that it’s okay to continually, repeatedly steal from businesses.”
