A rise in Queensland crime rates has been partly blamed on a police restructure.

Overall rates of crime are up by around 2 per cent for the 2018-2019 financial year. That includes an 18 per cent increase in weapons offences, a 14 per cent rise in the unlawful use of a motor vehicle and a 7 per cent rise in domestic violence breaches.

Criminologist and former detective Terry Goldsworthy says things are clearly going backwards.

“We are out of step with other states,” Dr Goldsworthy told reporters this week.

“New South Wales has had crime decreases for some years now and even Victoria, which features in national media for its crime issues, reduced its crime rate last year, so something is not right in Queensland.”

Dr Goldsworthy partly attributes the rise to an increase in public awareness and reporting, but said the 2013 QPS restructure that condensed eight police regions into five was part of it too.

“The restructure undertaken by Ian Stewart in 2013 has been a dismal failure,” he said.

“I did an analysis of the restructure going back 12 to 18 months ago and looked at all the key performance criteria that was to be evaluated against and most of them overwhelmingly had performed negatively.”

He did, however, point to some positive moves as examples that things can be improved.

On the Gold Coast, rates of sexual assault have decreased by 25 per cent, while there has been no change in that rate for Queensland overall.

“In a positive way, we are out of kilter with the rest of the state there,” Dr Goldsworthy said.

“I would be interested to hear from the police why they have been so successful in reducing those sexual assaults because that may be something that we could roll out across the states.”