Terrifying home invasions have soared in Melbourne's south-east, with Cranbourne, Skye and Devon Meadows becoming a hot spot for aggravated burglaries, the latest crime data shows.

Those suburbs are some of Melbourne's most politically sensitive, heaping more pressure on the Andrews government to combat violent crime.

The crime data paints a deep red bruise over postcode 3977, which takes in Cranbourne and Skye, where there were 125 violent break-ins last year, up from 56 in 2015.

Police recorded an aggravated burglary once every three days in the area on average last year.

The latest attack came on Wednesday night, when three people broke into a Cranbourne North home and stabbed an elderly man in the head with a pitchfork.

In Cranbourne, Labor holds just a 2.3 per cent margin in the seat. This electorate, and others in south east Melbourne, will loom as critical at next year's state election.

Home invasions have increased by a massive 40 per cent, with Victoria's overall crime rate rising by 10.2 per cent, figures from the Crime Statistics Agency revealed on Thursday.

There were more than 4200 violent break-ins throughout the state in 2016, up from about 3000 the previous year.

Almost half of all offenders were aged between 20 and 34.

Police Minister Lisa Neville said there was a long way to go before Victorians could feel safe in their homes.

"There are some positive signs but at the end of the day we've still got a long way to go for people to feel safe, and that they're not at risk of some of the crimes that we see on the TV every night," she said.

"I'm not trying to sugar coat this, we want to bring [the crime rate] down.

"We're going to continue to monitor it and we're going to continue to roll out whatever powers and resources we need to get on top of this, so that Victorians feel safe.

"I want people to feel safe in their homes and their communities. The war on this is not over, we're getting on top of this but we've got a long way to go."

Other areas where violent break-ins surged included Moe, Heidelberg, Narre Warren, St Kilda and Brunswick.

In Caulfield South, there were 42 aggravated burglaries last year - almost twice as many as the previous four years combined.

Crime also soared in Ballarat, where there were 70 more violent break-ins in 2016 than 2015.

Elsternwick, Gardenvale and Southbank were among the state's safest suburbs.

There was just one aggravated burglary in Elsternwick in 2016, and one in Southbank.

Elsewhere, rates of violent crime in the western suburbs could feed into a growing sentiment that the traditional Labor heartland - the area is home to a bloc of safe seats - is being neglected by the Andrews government.

Premier Daniel Andrews said the statistics did show that the crime rate was stabilising in some "critical areas".

"I'm not for a moment crowing about that," Mr Andrews said.

"We are seeing, I think, all the hard work that Victoria Police are doing, with the strong support of the government, starting to have a significant impact but there is much more to do."

Attacking Labor on law and order has been one of the main lines of attack from the Opposition, with Coalition Leader Matthew Guy promising to bring down the crime rate if the Coalition is elected.

"I will make Victoria a safer place. I will toughen up our bail laws, our sentencing regime," he said.

"I will bring police to streets quicker than Daniel Andrews will."

Ms Neville said despite the overall increase, crime rates in some areas were declining, particularly in the first few months of 2017.

"You're starting to see a slowing in the growth of our crime stats generally and in some particular areas a more significant decline," she said.

"In this last quarter, you saw only a 0.1 per cent increase, so you've got a stabilisation of the crime states. There's a lot of work still to do but in some areas there's some positive signs."

She said robberies had fallen 6 per cent, while theft from motor vehicles dropped 10 per cent.

Meanwhile, arrests increased 15 per cent in the last month, Ms Neville said.

On youth crime, Ms Neville said juvenile offending had dropped by 23 per cent since 2012.

She said under Operation Cosmos, which targets young offenders involved in carjackings and home invasions, there had been 452 arrests.

"We're starting to get on top of that group of young offenders. Youth offending has continued to decline since 2010," Ms Neville said.