Incidents of family violence rose 5.7 per cent in Brimbank for the year ending December 2019, according to the latest statistics from the Crime Statistics Agency.
A total of 2,904 incidents were recorded across Brimbank, with women listed as the victim in 2,168 of them.
Women aged between 25-35 were the most heavily impacted, with 730 incidents, while women aged 35-44 were also highly represented with 635 incidents.
Overall crime in Brimbank spiked 4.1 per cent.
In total there were 15,178 recorded criminal incidents across Brimbank in 2019, up from 14,577 for the same period in 2018.
St Albans was the crime capital of the municipality with 3,089 incidents for the year.
Sunshine (2,623), Deer Park (1,283) Taylors Lakes (1,275) and Sunshine West (975) rounded out the top five.
All recorded an increase in the total number of criminal incidents.
Theft was the most common crime committed with 2,109 incidents, while there were also 2,001 incidents of stealing from a motor vehicle.
Criminal damage was the third most common criminal incident, however the number of occurrence dropped from 1,052 to 998.
The vast majority of incidents occurred in houses with 4,246, however that number was down dramatically from the 4,527 recorded in 2018.
Crimes against the person also rose.
Sexual offences rose from 234 to 251, while assault and related offences jumped from 1,510 to 1,586.
But drug dealing and trafficking offences fell to their lowest total since 2011 with 131 incidents recorded.
While trafficking and dealing was down, drug use and possession incidents rose for the first time since 2012, jumping from 388 to 414.
Tate Papworth
