Crime data shows rise in sexual assault, blackmail in Australia

The rate of homicide, robbery and motor vehicle theft is at a five-year low in Australia, but the incidence of sexual assault and blackmail has grown in 2014, according to data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) on Wednesday.

William Milne, a spokesman from the ABS, said on Wednesday that the number of victims from sexual assault and blackmail "were two offense categories to record increases between 2013 and 2014".

He said that recorded incidents of sexual assault rose 3 percent to 20,677 between 2013 and 2014, with the overwhelming majority of those being young women.

"In 2014, over 80 percent of sexual assault victims were female, with the highest victimization rate being for females aged between 15 and 19 years," Milne said.

"Females in this age group were nearly seven times more likely to be a victim of sexual assault than the overall national average. "

"For over two-thirds of sexual assault victims, the incident occurred in a residential location.

"Our data also showed five year lows in a number of other offense categories, including homicide, kidnapping and motor vehicle theft."

The crime with the largest proportional decrease was robbery, which fell 16 percent in 2014, making it the fifth consecutive year that statistic has been in decline, according to the latest data.

Milne noted that the decreasing number of robberies followed a five-year trend, and the proportion of victims had fallen almost one third in that period.

"There were 9,886 victims of robbery recorded by police during 2014, a decrease of almost a third since 2010," Milne said.

"There was almost an even split between armed and unarmed robbery in 2014, with the majority of robberies occurring in either a retail location, or on a street or footpath."

Milne said that five-year lows had extended to other crimes, such as car robberies and murders.