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Numberplate thefts in Victoria double over the last decade, crime statistics reveal

By Jack Kerr
A hand with a red screwdriver trying to unscrew a bolt on a car licence plate.

Melbourne's outer suburbs are the main hotspots for numberplate thefts.

ABC News: Danielle Bonica

They thought it wouldn't happen in a nice suburbs like theirs.

Residents in a quiet, leafy Clifton Hill street in inner Melbourne woke up one morning to find the numberplates had been taken off their vehicles.

"My wife walked out with the kids in the morning, and noticed that something was missing," Travis Giansiracusa said.

"And once she had a look up and down the street, she noticed that four or five other cars had had their taken as well."

They aren't the only ones to fall victim to the crime in the last few years.

Incidents of numberplate thefts have doubled in Victoria this decade, according to data from the Crime Statistics Agency (CSA).

While it happens in most postcodes — including sleepy parts of Clifton Hill — nearly all the hotspots are outer suburban.

Dandenong, in Melbourne's outer south-east, is the state's number one location for thefts.

More than one car a day had its licence plates stolen in the year between April 2017 and March 2018, CSA data showed.

Nearby Cranbourne came in second, ahead of Craigieburn in the city's north, followed by the western suburbs of Hoppers Crossing, Sunshine and St Albans.

The postcode of 3350, in the regional city of Ballarat, also had over 300 instances of numberplate theft.

"Sometimes it's when they are parked at their home [when the plates are stolen]," said Dawn Vernon, the president of Greater Dandenong Neighbourhood Watch.

"Sometimes it's out on the street. Sometimes it's at a shopping centre. It can be anywhere."

She said while some people could laugh about it, they were in the minority.

"Most would feel violated. Somebody's violated their space," she said.

"I think you always think it's not going to happen to you, it's always going to somebody else."

Incidents of numberplate thefts across Victoria rose from 8,559 in the year ending March 2010, to 17,885 in 2018.

The figure was even higher in 2017, reaching a peak of 20,450.

"Numberplate theft is a serious crime which can often lead to further offending, for example ram raids, petrol drive-offs, toll evasion or joy-riding," a Victoria Police spokeswoman said.

She said the top 10 locations were reflective of wider crime trends in those areas.

"However, over the past 12 months, most of these locations have seen a reduction in theft of numberplate offences," she said.

Police said the recent dip in numberplate thefts — of 12.5 per cent — had been mirrored by a 12.9 per cent dip in other crimes associated with that offence.

The 'economic microcosm' of crime

Michelle Noon, a criminologist at RMIT University, said there could be another explanation for why postcodes like Dandenong's are such hotspots for numberplate thefts: there are more cars.

"In some of those areas, there's a slightly higher car ownership than your average Australian suburb," she said.

Alternatively, they may be what she calls "suburban CBDs" — major centres with shopping malls, transport hubs and other services that people from surrounding neighbourhoods drive to.

"It might just be that people are taking their cars there, and because their cars happen to be there, that's why the numberplates are being stolen."

As for the overall increase in thefts, she said there could be an economic reason for the rise in offences across the state.

The price of plates on the black market could have gone up, or rising petrol prices may have made it more profitable to steal them.

"[The criminal underground] is its own economic microcosm," she said.

"People who are in this industry, they work hard at it, many of them. It can be there full-time job.

"So they are going to go where there's economic sense to go."

Victoria Police said people could better protect their numberplates from theft by installing one-way screws on their vehicles, which it said added "an extra level of difficulty for anyone thinking of stealing".

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