Crime statistics released on Thursday reveal the overall crime rate for Victoria was 6032 incidents per 100,000 people in the 12 months to September 2019, which represents a 1.7 per cent increase compared with the previous period. This puts the crime rate in Victoria last year at its third-highest level of the past decade, driven largely by an increase in thefts from shops, cars and other types of theft. This quarterly release of data from the Crime Statistics Agency does not include details of the nationality of offenders or the age breakdown of repeat offenders. In total there were 397,849 criminal incidents recorded state wide over the past 12 months, with property crimes such as theft and fraud making up about 60 per cent of reports.

There were 41 aggravated robberies per 100,000 people in the 12 months to September 2019, up from 33 per 100,000 the previous period. The rate of aggravated robberies at the start of the decade was about 39 incidents per 100,000 people, but in the years that followed the rate plummeted to a low of 28 per 100,000 in 2015. However, since 2015 the rate of such robberies has been increasing. In real terms, there were 2682 aggravated robberies in the past 12 months (that’s about seven per day on average), up from 2158 the previous period. Deputy Commissioner Shane Patton said one of the most concerning trends was the increase in thefts and robberies from young offenders – both male and female – who are targeting other young people.

"This is one of the most impactful crimes because it happening out on the street, and near transport hubs," he said. "These are random offences on the streets. That’s 10 to 17-year-olds stealing mobile phones, backpacks, AirPods, shoes." The statistics revealed the most common locations where aggravated robberies happened were streets/footpaths (1122 incidents), parks and gardens (225), the home (178), shopping centres (123), service stations (87) and car parks. There was a considerable increase in aggravated robberies at shopping centres, which surged 64 per cent compared with last year. Mr Patton said some of the youth offenders were involved in "low-key gang groups", however some robberies were being committed by first-time offenders.

"A lot of random offending occurs where we couldn’t anticipate who, but it’s youth-on-youth because they see items they want," he said. "The youth of today are being more brazen and doing things we haven’t seen 10 years ago." It comes as police prepare to ramp up patrols at Chelsea beach in Melbourne's south-east on Friday night, where youths were "causing trouble" on Wednesday night. Loading About 50 young people were "pushing and yelling" in streets surrounding the train station, before police used pepper-spray to break up a brawl on a bus.

A Chelsea resident, whose home overlooks the beach, said locals were fearful of going to the beach on hot days when they expected bad behaviour. "It happens every hot day. It will probably happen again [on Friday]," he said. The resident, who did not want to be named, said he believed most of the youths who misbehaved came from outer south-eastern suburbs. "They come to Chelsea because it's the closest beach to them with the amenities open at night time that they're after – supermarkets and bottle shops and food." Police Minister Lisa Neville said the government had funded 42 youth specialist officers to deal with young offenders.

"Overall, our youth offending rates have gone up slightly in terms of raw numbers, about 2 per cent, but it is really about a very small group, proportionally of all people who commit crimes they are a relatively small group of people but they are committing a lot of crimes and they are in the robbery space," she said. "Those young people who are committing crimes are escalating quickly and are doing a lot of crime, a lot of recidivism in this group." Opposition police spokesman Edward Donohue said recidivism was the central issue that needed to be tackled. "All we have from Lisa Neville today is spin and lines – where's the substance? Where's the new approach to tackle today's shocking crime statistics," he said. "The government today is offering no new policies, no new ideas, only spin and excuses to explain away that rise in crime.

"There's a hardened cohort of youth offenders that appear to have little concern for consequences and little appetite for change. We need to change that behaviour. And we need to get that hardened cohort," he said.