Ahead of the 2018 Victorian state election, Asher Judah, the Liberal candidate for the seat of Bentleigh, claimed there had been a 58 per cent increase in crime in Bentleigh since the election of the Labor Government in 2014. But there's more to the story than Mr Judah's claim suggests. Mr Judah and the Liberals have been driving their campaign truck adorned with crime statistics across the Bentleigh electorate. But Mr Judah's frequent social media posts, along with the Liberal Party media release, referred to criminal offence data that is specific to the suburb of Bentleigh and not the Bentleigh electorate. Victoria's Crime Statistics Agency does not compile data according to electorates, but does so for individual suburbs and for municipalities. In deriving his quoted figure of 58 per cent, Mr Judah compared simple crime numbers for the suburb of Bentleigh for the year ending December 2014 with those for the year ending June 2018. Experts told RMIT ABC Fact Check that using raw numbers rather than rates when referring to crime data ignores population growth, and therefore would be unlikely to provide an accurate picture of the criminal landscape. In addition, experts cautioned that crime statistics were often a reflection of legislative changes, as well as policing practices and methods of recording crime data, more than a clear reflection of changes in the actual volume of crimes being committed.
Verdict: More to the story