Victoria’s Version of Crime Stats

I have just come across “My Place – crime statistics for your area” page on the Victoria Police site. I presented several similar online crime reporting initiatives on this blog in the past so, one more example for the collection. Previously featured were UK crime statistics maps and several entries in Mashup Australia competition with NSW crime statistics.


The information is presented in summary format only (unlike details available in NSW crime data) and without the ability to compare “your area” to neighbouring locations. Statistics are available only for large geographic areas (eg. half a State) so definition of “your area” is rather … loosely interpreted. The following notice adds to the confusion as to what really "local area" means: “Please note that the statistics below are for your local Police Service Area, which covers an area with similar boundaries to your shire council.” It leaves too much to interpretation.

This is a perfect example of the dataset that would be best presented in “GIS” as well as tabular format and graphs. As yet, raw data is not available for download so no chances of adding value to this information.