Stats show there’s nothing fun about Sunday when crime is involved
THE weekend may be renowned as a time to relax but it’s also when sex offences, assaults, burglaries and robbery peak across the state.
In 2019, the peak time for sex offences was in the early hours of Sunday.
From midnight to 6am, there were 445 offences recorded — 2½ times as many sex offences as other time periods — according to data from the Crime Statistics Agency Victoria.
But sex offences remain at elevated numbers across the entire weekend.
The crimes rise from noon on Friday and stay elevated until dropping on Sunday night.
Saturday night was also the peak time for “assault and related offences”, with 2585 offences occurring from 6pmmidnight.
Friday night came a close second, with 2299 offences recorded in the same time frame.
Robbery also peaked on Friday between 6pm and midnight, with 265 offences.
Associate Professor Michael Townsley, of Griffith University’s School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, said a number of factors created prime circumstances for criminal activity.
“For a crime to occur, there has to be three elements in position — a motivated offender, a victim or target, and a guardian,” Dr Townsley said.
“Basically, you need all those elements for crime to be possible. If one of them is out of alignment, then a crime won’t happen.”
In other words, for a house to be broken into, there needs to be a suitable house, a willing crook, and the house’s “guardian” (such as residents or neighbours who could stop the crime) need to be absent or distracted to give the crook the opportunity to break in.
“Just as lot of cars have accidents at rush hour, when there’s lots of cars and lots of congestion, crime peaks when there’s … lots of victims around, lots of offenders, or there’s no guardians,” Dr Townsley said.
Friday afternoon attracted the most burglary and breakand-enter offences, with 2958.
Offences of “stalking, harassment and threatening behaviour” peaked on weekday afternoons, with Monday seeing the highest number of offences with 599.