As such a big city, there’s plenty to get excited about in Melbourne. It’s a culturally diverse city and has all sorts of sports, music, and art venues. However, one thing you’ll want to consider before moving anywhere is crime. What is the crime rate in Melbourne? Is it safe? Let’s explore these questions!
Thankfully, we can investigate the safety of Melbourne in depth thanks to data gathered by Numbeo. If you haven’t discovered this website before, it contains all sorts of information for each major city in Australia and is a valuable resource if you’re considering moving to various cities. Type the name of the city into the search bar and you’ll have access to lots of data instantly.
One good thing about Numbeo is that all statistics are drawn from consumer surveys. In other words, visitors to the website answer questions and Numbeo generates crime indices from the responses.
Firstly, the crime index is at 44 in Melbourne, significantly higher than the crime index in Sydney which is below 34. However, other cities have a crime index in the 40s including Perth. What’s more, the safety index is lower than in Sydney. While Sydney has a score of 66, Melbourne sits at 55.
Numbeo also asks participants how they feel in certain situations, and it’s interesting looking at the statistics. For example, the level of crime is Moderate while crime increasing in the past three years is High. With this in mind, people living in Melbourne feel as though crime is increasing. Elsewhere, other Moderate categories include worries that things will be stolen from the home, worries of being attacked, and worries of being insulted.
On the other hand, some categories are classed as Low. This includes worries of having a vehicle taken and worries of being mugged. This is also reflected in safety statistics on Numbeo; a large portion of respondents feel safe walking alone during daylight while only a slightly smaller group feel safe walking alone at night.
Since Melbourne is a diverse city, it’s perhaps not surprising that another Low category is the risk of being attacked because of gender, ethnicity, religion, or skin colour.
Comparing Melbourne to other cities around the world, the crime index is only slightly above Berlin but comfortably behind New York, London, and Delhi. To put it into perspective, the crime index in Melbourne is 44 compared to 53 in London and 59 in Delhi.
Official Statistics
As well as gauging the opinions of people who live in Melbourne, it’s also worthwhile looking at official statistics to help make your decision. Over the last ten years, crime in Victoria has increased in Melbourne with 544,000 offences in 2020 compared to the 406,000 back in 2012. The most common crime in Victoria is property and deception offences, and this makes up the bulk of overall crimes. In 2020, 304,000 of the 544,000 were in this category.
After this, the next four largest categories are crimes against individuals, justice procedure offences, drug offences, and security offences.
Summary
All in all, Melbourne is a major city like many others. As long as you avoid dangerous suburbs, where crime rates are higher, there’s no reason why you and your family can’t enjoy a safe life in Melbourne. Suburbs with the highest crime rates include Cardinia Shire, Western Suburbs, Mitchell Shire, and Hume City Council.
Of course, the actions you take yourself can also reduce the risk of crime including steel doors in Melbourne and good safety habits like not walking alone at night.
