Community & Belonging · Indicator 1
Nighttime crime data measurement
What this indicator asks
How do the police in Sydney define, record and publish crime at night, and who can get this data?
not scored
We reviewed the crime data that the NSW Police Force records and the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research publishes. This indicator describes how data is kept. It does not report crime figures or say whether the city is safe.
NSW crime statistics define night as 6pm to 6am. Anyone can use the public crime map to count crimes at night in a suburb or postcode, and narrow that to crimes at pubs and clubs. The law has a different night: under the Crimes Act 1900, night runs from 9pm to 6am.
Night-time assault figures were the main evidence for the 2014 lockout laws. The government cited the same data when it removed the last lockout-era rules on 21 January 2026.