NSW Recorded Crime Statistics quarterly update December 2024

The latest statistics show that over the 24 months to December 2024, recorded criminal incidents for 12 of the 13 major offence categories were stable and one major offence category, steal from motor vehicle, showed a significant decline (down 8.0%). This is the second consecutive quarter in which none of the 13 major offences increased year-on-year.

In the ten years to December 2024, five of the 13 major offence categories increased significantly:

• domestic violence assault (up 3.1% per year on average),
• non-domestic assault (up 1.3% per year on average),
• sexual assault (up 8.8% per year on average),
• sexual touching, sexual act & other sexual offences (up 2.9% per year on average), and
• steal from retail store (up 2.7% per year on average).

The latest quarterly report also shows that there were 85 murder victims recorded by NSW Police in 2024, the highest number in a calendar year since 2014 when NSW recorded 93 murder victims. The 85 victims comprised of 46 adult men, 26 adult women and 13 young people and children (up from 36, 18 and four respectively in 2023); 45.9% were DV related. The high number of murders in 2024 was due to an unusually large number of murders involving multiple victims. In 2024, there were eight criminal events that involved two or more murder victims which resulted in 22 murder victims. By comparison, in the 14 years prior to 2024 (2010 to 2023) there were on average, two multiple victim murder events annually resulting in, on average, five murder victims annually. In 2024, 26% of all people murdered were killed in an event involving multiple victims. Half of these 22 murder victims were killed in DFV related circumstances.