Revealed: where Queensland's recorded offences nearly doubled — and fell fastest

Recorded-offence totals almost doubled in two Queensland suburbs between 2022 and 2025 — and neither was an inner-city or tourism precinct. An analysis of Queensland Police Service data found the largest increases in Yarrabilba and Logan Reserve on Brisbane’s fringe. Fortitude Valley and the Gold Coast strip remain among Queensland’s highest-volume locations, but neither recorded an increase approaching those two suburbs on the fringe of Brisbane. At the other end of the ranking, Middle Ridge recorded the largest percentage fall. Cairns suburbs Brinsmead and White Rock ranked second and third for declining totals.

Top of the list is Yarrabilba, a master-planned estate in the Logan growth corridor. In 2022 police recorded 471 offences there. By 2025 that had climbed to 936 — a 99% jump between 2022 and 2025, near enough to double. A few kilometres away Logan Reserve is close behind, up 93% (411 to 794).

Queensland’s sharpest rises in recorded offences are on SEQ’s building frontier.

These rankings measure changes in total recorded offences, not offences per resident. Population growth may account for some of the increase in growing suburbs, so the figures cannot tell us on their own whether an individual’s risk has risen. What they establish is that every suburb in the ranking recorded more offences in 2025 than in 2022.

Pull Yarrabilba apart and the growth is broad, not one bad category. The biggest single driver is the QPS ‘Other Theft’ category, up from 86 recorded offences in 2022 to 269 in 2025, but break-ins, property damage and drug offences also rose. The spread across categories is consistent with activity increasing across a growing suburb, rather than the total being driven by one offence type alone.

it isn’t only Logan’s estates. The list reaches right across the state: Sunshine Coast suburbs Buddina and Mooloolaba, inner-Brisbane Toowong, Cairns industrial suburb Portsmith, and regional towns from Cannonvale near Airlie Beach to Gatton in the Lockyer Valley. Beenleigh, already one of the busiest suburbs on the list, added more than a thousand offences a year to hit 2,970 in 2025.

Some suburbs excluded by the 300-offence threshold produced larger percentage changes from much lower starting totals. They sit outside the main ranking because small numerical changes can create extreme percentages. Baringa on the Sunshine Coast is up 133% and Ripley near Ipswich 117% between 2022 and 2025.

And where it’s falling

The same dataset also identifies substantial falls. Leading the 405 eligible suburbs is Middle Ridge, where offences fell from 326 in 2022 to 137 in 2025 — a 58% fall, the largest decline in the analysis. This does not make Middle Ridge Queensland’s safest suburb: it means its recorded-offence total fell by the greatest percentage among suburbs that met the study’s inclusion threshold. Brinsmead followed with a 42% fall, while White Rock was down 41%. Other leading falls included Thursday Island, Glass House Mountains on the Sunshine Coast and Wavell Heights in Brisbane’s north.

Find your suburb

Every Queensland suburb with at least 300 recorded offences in the 2022 base year is in the table below — 405 in all. Search for yours, or click any column heading to rank the whole state — by the biggest rise, the most offences or A–Z. Tap any suburb to see its full crime, flood, bushfire and school picture.

Journalists and researchers: download the full dataset (CSV) — all 405 suburbs with annual totals for 2022–2025 and the percentage change. Free to use with attribution to KnowYourBlock and the Queensland Police Service.

Recorded offences nearly doubled in Yarrabilba and Logan Reserve — but raw totals alone cannot show whether residents faced greater individual risk.

Statewide rankings provide context, but property decisions require a closer local view. Check any Queensland address on KnowYourBlock and you’ll see the crime read for that street alongside its flood, bushfire, zoning and school-catchment picture — or open any suburb above to see how it compares.