Police in Australia recorded 435 victims of homicide in 2025, 1.6 for every 100,000 residents. In 1993 the rate was 4.0. Recorded robbery has fallen further from its high point: 10,591 victims in 2025 against 26,590 in 2001. Recorded sexual assault has moved the other way. The rate has roughly doubled since 1993, from 69.1 to 144.0 victims per 100,000 residents, and rose in every year from 2012 to 2024 before easing in 2025. Three offences that are often grouped together as violent crime have followed three different paths.
Victims of offences recorded by police, by calendar year, from the ABS Recorded Crime – Victims collection for 2025.
What is counted
The figures come from the Australian Bureau of Statistics collection Recorded Crime – Victims for 2025, which brings together the records of the eight state and territory police forces under national counting rules. It counts victims of offences that came to the attention of police and were recorded by them in a calendar year. It does not count offences that were never reported, so a change in these figures can reflect a change in how readily people report an offence, or in how police record it, as well as a change in how often the offence happens. That distinction matters most for sexual assault and is taken up below.
Homicide here means murder, attempted murder and manslaughter. A victim of robbery can be a person or an organisation such as a shop or a bank. The ABS publishes no national figure for assault, the most common of these offences, and no assault data for Victoria; assault is covered by state in the last section.
Homicide: a rate less than half that of the 1990s
Victims of homicide and related offences per 100,000 residents, Australia, 1993 to 2025
APN chart based on Australian Bureau of Statistics data: Recorded Crime – Victims, 2025, Table 1. Victims of homicide and related offences (murder, attempted murder and manslaughter) recorded by police, per 100,000 residents, 1993 to 2025.
From 1993 to 2003 the recorded homicide rate was never below 3.5 victims per 100,000 residents, and it reached 4.2 in 2001, when police recorded 809 victims, the most in the series. It then fell for most of two decades. Since 2010 it has not been above 2.1, and the lowest year was 2021, with 370 victims and a rate of 1.4.
The 435 victims recorded in 2025 were 38% fewer than the 697 recorded in 1993, in a population that was 57% larger. The rate, at 1.6, was 60% lower than in 1993. It has been between 1.4 and 1.6 in every year since 2018.
Robbery: a peak in 2001 and a long decline
Victims of robbery per 100,000 residents, Australia, 1993 to 2025
APN calculation based on Australian Bureau of Statistics data: Recorded Crime – Victims, 2025, Table 1, and National, state and territory population, March quarter 2026, Table 1. Victims of robbery recorded by police, divided by the estimated resident population at 30 June of each year. The ABS publishes the number of robbery victims and not a rate. A victim of robbery can be a person or an organisation.
Recorded robbery doubled in eight years, from 12,767 victims in 1993 to 26,590 in 2001, and then fell, with interruptions, to 8,968 in 2015, the fewest in the series. The number has been below 12,000 in every year since 2013. In 2025 police recorded 10,591 victims, 8% fewer than in 2024 and 60% fewer than in 2001.
Set against population, the decline is larger. There were 138.0 robbery victims for every 100,000 residents in 2001 and 38.4 in 2025, a fall of 72%. On that measure the lowest year was 2021, at 35.6.
Sexual assault: thirteen consecutive annual increases
Victims of sexual assault per 100,000 residents, Australia, 1993 to 2025
APN chart based on Australian Bureau of Statistics data: Recorded Crime – Victims, 2025, Table 1. Victims of sexual assault recorded by police, per 100,000 residents, 1993 to 2025, by the year the offence was reported to police.
Police recorded 12,190 victims of sexual assault in 1993 and 39,758 in 2025, a little more than three times as many. The rate rose from 69.1 to 144.0 victims per 100,000 residents. The ABS notes that sexual assault was not recorded consistently between states and territories before 2010, when a national recording standard took full effect, so the figures before and after that year are not on quite the same footing. Most of the increase is recent. The rate was 83.3 in 2011, lower than it had been a decade earlier, and has risen by 73% since. The number of victims increased in each of the thirteen years from 2012 to 2024, reaching 40,087, and fell by 329 in 2025.
These are counts of victims by the year in which the offence was reported, not the year in which it happened. The ABS reports that 66% of the victims recorded in 2025 (26,194) reported to police within a year of the offence, so up to a third were reported a year or more afterwards. A recorded rate therefore rises when more people come forward, including about offences from earlier years, and the collection cannot separate that from a change in the number of offences. It measures what reached police records, and nothing in it establishes how common the offence is.
Sexual assault by state and territory
Victims of sexual assault per 100,000 residents, by state and territory, 2025
APN chart based on Australian Bureau of Statistics data: Recorded Crime – Victims, 2025, Tables 1 and 10. Victims of sexual assault recorded by police per 100,000 residents, 2025, with the 2010 rate in brackets.
The recorded rate was higher in 2025 than in 2010 in every state and territory. The largest proportional change was in Tasmania, where it almost tripled, from 34.8 to 101.3. The Northern Territory (201.6) and New South Wales (193.8) recorded the highest rates in 2025 and the Australian Capital Territory (87.5) and Victoria (95.1) the lowest. Between 2024 and 2025 the rate rose in four jurisdictions and fell in four. Differences between jurisdictions reflect reporting behaviour and police practice as well as the number of offences. The ABS notes that Victoria’s figures for 2010 to 2012 are not directly comparable with later years, that sexual assault in Western Australia may have been undercounted before 2017, and that a change of recording system in the Northern Territory affects comparison of its figures from 2023 with earlier years.
Homicide and robbery by state and territory
Victims of homicide and related offences per 100,000 residents, by state and territory, 2025
APN chart based on Australian Bureau of Statistics data: Recorded Crime – Victims, 2025, Tables 1 and 10. Victims of homicide and related offences recorded by police per 100,000 residents, 2025, with the 2010 rate in brackets. Rates for the smaller jurisdictions rest on small numbers and move widely from year to year.
The homicide rate in 2025 was lower than in 2010 in seven of the eight jurisdictions; Tasmania, where the numbers are small, was the exception. The Northern Territory has the highest rate, 3.0 in 2025, down from 11.8 in 2010. Elsewhere the 2025 rates lie between 0.6 and 1.8.
| State or territory | 2010 | 2019 | 2025 | Change, 2010 to 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New South Wales | 6,569 | 2,861 | 2,012 | −69% |
| Victoria | 3,015 | 3,854 | 3,300 | +9% |
| Queensland | 1,761 | 2,621 | 2,606 | +48% |
| South Australia | 1,140 | 603 | 461 | −60% |
| Western Australia | 1,626 | 1,335 | 1,324 | −19% |
| Tasmania | 150 | 121 | 289 | +93% |
| Northern Territory | 96 | 147 | 398 | +315% |
| Australian Capital Territory | 277 | 236 | 202 | −27% |
| Australia | 14,634 | 11,774 | 10,591 | −28% |
APN calculation based on Australian Bureau of Statistics data: Recorded Crime – Victims, 2025, Tables 1 and 9. Victims of robbery recorded by police. The change is APN’s calculation. State figures may not add to the national figure because the ABS makes small random adjustments to protect confidentiality.
The national decline in robbery since 2010 is a New South Wales decline. Recorded robbery victims there fell from 6,569 to 2,012, a fall of 69% and of more victims (4,557) than the national total fell by (4,043), and the state’s share of the national total fell from 45% to 19%. South Australia recorded a fall of 60%. Four jurisdictions recorded more victims in 2025 than in 2010: Victoria (9% more), Queensland (48% more), Tasmania and the Northern Territory. Victoria recorded more robbery victims than any other state in 2025; in 2010 New South Wales did.
Assault, where it is published
| State or territory | 2010 | 2019 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|
| New South Wales | 1,035.3 | 840.8 | 916.9 |
| Victoria | NIL RETURN | NIL RETURN | NIL RETURN |
| Queensland | NIL RETURN | NIL RETURN | 1,044.4 |
| South Australia | 977.1 | 914.6 | 1,233.6 |
| Western Australia | 913.4 | 1,169.2 | 1,629.3 |
| Tasmania | NIL RETURN | 614.2 | 734.9 |
| Northern Territory | 2,995.5 | 2,729.6 | 4,056.5 |
| Australian Capital Territory | 650.1 | 550.6 | 502.6 |
Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Recorded Crime – Victims, 2025, Table 10. Victims of assault recorded by police per 100,000 residents. NIL RETURN marks a year for which the ABS publishes no figure. The ABS does not publish assault figures for Victoria.
Assault is far more common than the three offences above: recorded rates are several hundred to several thousand victims per 100,000 residents, against 144.0 for sexual assault and 1.6 for homicide. Among the six jurisdictions with a figure for both 2019 and 2025, the recorded rate rose in five (New South Wales, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory) and fell in the Australian Capital Territory. Queensland’s series begins later, and there is none for Victoria, so there is no national trend to report. Rates differ between jurisdictions in part because recording practices differ, and the Northern Territory’s figures from 2023 are affected by its change of system.
What this does not show
Police records measure offences that were reported and recorded. They do not measure offences that were not reported, and the share that is reported differs between offences and changes over time. Homicide is the offence least affected, because most homicides come to the attention of police. For sexual assault, recorded figures are a measure of reporting as much as of offending. Surveys that ask people directly about their experience, such as the ABS Personal Safety Survey, are the source for how common these offences are. The figures are national and state totals and say nothing about any particular suburb or town.
- Australian Bureau of Statistics (Reference period: 2025) Recorded Crime – Victims [https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/crime-and-justice/recorded-crime-victims/latest-release], ABS Website, accessed 11 October 2026.
- Australian Bureau of Statistics (Reference period: March 2026) National, state and territory population [https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/national-state-and-territory-population/latest-release], ABS Website, accessed 11 October 2026.
ABS material is used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence. Calculations, standardisations and index readings are APN’s and are not attributable to the ABS.
Disclaimer
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Findings are presented on the basis of data and evidence alone.
