The Crime Statistics Agency data released on Tuesday showed that crime had dropped for the first time in six years, and that fewer youths were being arrested, but those who did come into contact with police were responsible for more offences. Deputy Commissioner Andrew Crisp on Thursday described youth offenders as a "United Nations", and Australian-born offenders remain by far the most likely ethnicity accused of crime. But there is growing concern not enough is being done to divert Sudanese youths, particularly young men, from the criminal justice system. Helen Fatouros​, Victoria Legal Aid's executive director of criminal law, said statistics could misrepresent a complex social problem, and reinforce a troubling misconception that all African kids are bad.

"They are over-represented, but how are we actually going to address the vulnerabilities that bring them into contact with the criminal justice system," she said. "We're locking them into a particular label and identity, and a pathway towards further criminal offending. We're just creating more victims by not addressing these issues early." Ms Fatouros, who is also a council director of the Sentencing Advisory Council, a commissioner of the Victorian Law Reform Commission, and a former public prosecutor said we risked stigmatising an ethnic minority and locking them into a dangerous cycle unless the focus shifted away from the amount of offenders, and towards this over-representation. Anthony Kelly, the chief executive of the Flemington Kensington Community Legal Centre, said long-term trends showed immigrant groups were under-represented in crime statistics. "Focusing on race distorts public perceptions of crime and prevents a focus on the factors shared by the majority of offenders such as gender, employment, postcode disadvantage etc."

The crime statistics release affirmed a bold prediction made three months ago by Police Minister Lisa Neville: that despite public fears, and the howling of the opposition, the crime rate would go down. She was proven correct, but with a caveat. Aggravated burglaries and robberies, two crimes that have a significant impact on victims, and dominate the nightly news, continue to increase. And despite the fall, last year's crime rate was still the second highest for the past decade. Ms Neville described aggravated burglaries, which went up by 12.2 per cent, as the crime that "sticks in the head" of people, and makes them feel unsafe.

A relentless effort by police had helped drive the overall decline, she said. The relatively positive crime statistics were worthy of a half-smile, Deputy Commissioner Crisp said. He said a strange trend of crime linked with dating and trade sites such as Tinder or Gumtree had impacted on the rate of assault, robbery, and sex offences in the past year. For the first time since police made family violence a focus earlier this decade, these offences have dropped.