More than 41,500 offences were reported in the ACT during 2019 with burglary, sex assaults and property damage offences rising, but assaults and traffic infringements falling.
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Calendar year crime statistics posted to the police website, excluding traffic and criminal infringement notices, show that reported offences fell by 1.2 per cent in 2019 compared with 2018.
The 15.3 per cent spike in burglaries across the ACT is significant and was particularly focused on northside suburbs such as Gungahlin (up 47 per cent), Belconnen (+12.4 per cent), Weston Creek (+34 per cent) and the inner north (+ 30.5 per cent).
Tuggeranong, the inner south and Woden all recorded falls in reported burglaries. Burglary is regarded by police as a "crime of opportunity" in which intruders generally look for quick and easy ways to break in, steal goods and leave without being detected.
The suburbs of Harrison, Nicholls, and Franklin were among the hardest hit by the rise in Gungahlin burglaries.
Reported sex assaults lifted from 504 to 560 over the 12 months. You are far more likely to be a victim of sex assault in the inner north and Belconnen, with 43 per cent of the ACT sex offences reported in these two areas.
There were six homicides in the ACT in 2019, as opposed to nine the previous year. Gungahlin was the "hot spot" for these murders where three of these offences were reported last year.
If you live in Tuggeranong or Belconnen, the latest crime statistics show you are far more likely to be the target of car theft. More than 34 per cent of the cars stolen in Canberra last year came from these two areas.
Despite its rapid population growth, Gungahlin had fewer stolen cars last year than in 2018. However, sexual offences reported across the same suburb almost doubled from 50 in 2018 to 98 last year.
The inner north, Belconnen and Tuggeranong were where most robberies in Canberra occurred in 2019, continuing the same trend from 2018.
If you live in the inner north, you are far more likely to be a victim of any type of any theft, excluding car theft, than anywhere else in Canberra. Last year more than 25 per cent, or 2263 instances, of Canberra's thefts were reported in the inner north.
Assaults reported across the territory declined by 1.8 per cent in 2019 with the most assaults recorded in the inner north (719 instances), Belconnen (594) and Tuggeranong (524).
Narrabundah recorded a notable rise from 39 assaults in 2018 to 65 last year. Meanwhile, other suburbs like Kaleen plunged from 40 to 12, and Lyons from 24 to 8.
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Although statistically small numbers can radically skew percentages, there are notable spikes of certain crime types in specific suburbs, such as the leap from a single car theft reported in Scullin in 2018 to 10 in 2019. In Coombs, reported assaults rose from 8 in 2018 to 26 last year.
There were more traffic infringements issued across Belconnen (2951) than the entire inner north (2206). Curiously, more traffic tickets were issued in the Belconnen town centre (888) than in the Civic precinct (707). Bruce (415) and Hawker (316) also received close attention.
ACT Policing operates under contract to the ACT government. In 2018-19, the services contract was valued at $166.2 million, an increase of $7.4 million over the previous year.
Additionally, the ACT government topped up the contract in the latest budget, adding $34.3 million to recruit a further 60 ACT officers over the next four years.
