Crime falls across South Australia yet again

The latest crime statistics reveal total offences against a person or property are down four per cent, confirming this government’s investments in police and legislative reform are making a difference on the ground.

The September rolling year crime statistics reveal property related crimes have decreased by six per cent, continuing a downward trend recorded for the past 13 reporting periods.

Key highlights of the rolling 12 monthly crime statistics to 30 September 2025 include:

• Offences Against Person/Property decreased by 4 per cent or 4,893 offences (118,368 in the current rolling year compared to 123,261 in the previous rolling year).
• Offences Against Property decreased by 6 per cent or 5,386 offences (88,726 in the current rolling year compared to 94,112 in the previous rolling year).

The Malinauskas Labor Government has led the country in knife law reforms, new laws cracking down on street gangs, announced a crackdown on copper theft and workplace protection orders.

These tough new measures have helped police by giving them the tools they need to disrupt criminal activities and stop people from using violence against others.

The downturn has also been linked to the focused work of officers when dealing with recidivist offenders, particularly across property offence categories. In many cases, individual offenders are responsible for dozens of offences.

Of note, robbery, blackmail and extortion decreased by 6 per cent or 49 offences (713 in the current rolling year compared to 762 in the previous).

Theft has also decreased significantly, down by 7 per cent or 4,217 offences (53,818 compared to 58,035). Within this subcategory, theft from retail premises is down by 14 per cent or 3,619 offences and theft from a person decreased by 3 per cent or 476 offences (13,761 compared to 14,237).

The 2025-26 Budget made a significant investment to support our police force to better protect and serve the community, including funding additional officers, improving the amenity of police facilities, and modernising their equipment. The State Government has committed an additional $334 million to support SA Police, including $82 million dollars to hire an extra 189 Police Security Officers.

It comes as Police Minister Blair Boyer announced last month a record 3,050 people from across Australia and overseas applied to join SA Police. This has seen additional recruitment courses added at the SA Police Academy with double the number of graduate cadets.

Across 2024-25 financial year, 264 people graduated from the training academy. This is more than double the number of police graduating from the training academy under the former Marshall Liberal Government, when Vincent Tarzia was the former Police Minister, which saw just 111 cadets graduate during 2021-22.

On 1 July SAPOL updated crime recording and reporting systems to align with a new crime coding change required by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Quotes

Attributable to Blair Boyer

This government has made unprecedented investments in SA Police, and it is helping better protect the community.

Of course there is more work to do, with a significant amount of SAPOL officers’ time, spent dealing with domestic and family violence related issues.

But we are committed to protecting the community, and our investments reflect the support we have in our hard-working officers – with these decreasing trends in crime statistics showing that our investments are working.