Crime rate up more than 50 per cent

While it remains one of the safest suburbs in Melbourne, crime has increased by more than 50 per cent in Docklands, according to crime data released last month.

Some 1382 offences were recorded in postcode 3008 in 2014, comprising just four per cent of the 32,301 crimes recorded in the City of Melbourne.

Although the 2014 crime rate in Docklands is low, it had increased by 56 per cent on the previous year.

Docklands' crime rate had increased at a slow rate since 2010, with 788 offences recorded, before jumping to 1049 offences in 2012 and declining to 883 offences in 2013.

West Melbourne, Carlton North, East Melbourne and Parkville all recorded less offences than Docklands, but Southbank, North Melbourne, Kensington, Fishermans Bend and South Yarra all had higher crime rates than Docklands in 2014.

But the CBD proved to be Melbourne’s major crime centre, recording 21,624 offences.

The statistics were released last month as part of the Crime Statistics Agency's first quarterly report. The Crime Statistics Agency assumed the role of reporting crime statistics from Victoria Police on January 1.

While the statistics don’t provide breakdowns of the different types of crime in Docklands, they do show that the most common crime in the Melbourne Local Government Area (LGA) in 2014 was theft.

Despite being the most common crime, theft offences in Melbourne are down to 9765 from 13,683 offences in 2012 and 10,284 offences in 2013.

Other common offences in the Melbourne LGA in 2014 included deception (4676 offences), disorderly and offensive conduct (3924 offences), breaches of orders (3312 offences) and assault and related offences (2308 offences).

Overall property and deception offences, which include theft, arson and bribery, dropped from 20,716 offences in 2012 to 17,569 offences in 2014.

Crimes against the person, which include homicide, sexual offences and assaults have remained stable, with 3648 offences recorded, almost the same as the 3644 offences recorded in 2012.

Some 11 homicides were recorded in the Melbourne region in 2014, matching the 2012 statistics but an increase on the four homicides recorded in 2013.

Public order and security offences such as public nuisance and disorderly and offensive conduct have decreased gradually over the past three years from 6186 offences in 2012, 5541 offences in 2013 and 4990 offences in 2012.