Crime Rates

CRIME RATES AND FEAR OF CRIME IN AUSTRALIA The public’s opinion about the type of crimes committed and their rate of increase significantly influences the development of law enforcement policies (Davis & Dossetor, 2010). However, there often exists a discrepancy between the public view of crimes committed and the actual number of crimes committed which is essentially obtained through statistics from police and victim reports. The difference mainly lies on the public’s perception of an increase in crime rates when in fact crimes rates are on the decrease. The Government has come under immense pressure from the public to increase spending on law enforcement because the public believes that crime rate is on the increase when in fact it is not.

Only 1.8 percent of the respondents believed that the number of charged and convicted criminals had increased which is true according to Roberts and Indermaur (2009). Only 15 percent of the respondents actually placed the number of male prisoners convicted of assault to between 21 to 30 percent while 8 percent accurately placed the number of males convicted of home burglary to between 31 to 40 percent. The results of the survey by AuSSA in 2007 indicate a high prevalence of public perception of crime with a significant proportion of the respondents overrating the crime rate and erroneously perceiving a rising crime movement from 2005 to 2007. According to studies of the public’s perception of crime in Australia by Indermaur & Roberts (2007), the perception about crime rates are influenced by factors such as age, gender, level of education and sources of information. The study was compared to the AuSSA 2007 survey report. As the age of the respondent in the study increased, so did the perception of significant increase in crime rate. Perception of a lot less crime in 2007

Under education categories such as none, trade qualification, business certificate or diploma, undergraduate degree and postgraduate degree or diploma, the number of respondents who had the opinion that crime rates had increased significantly increased with the post-secondary education. The level of education however had no effect on respondents who thought that there was a lot less crime. The public obtains information about crime from various sources such as family or friends, work colleagues, the media, as well as from their personal experiences. The participants who gathered information about crimes from family or friends, radio talk shows or commercial television had more inaccurate perceptions of crime. Most respondents thought that the television and newspapers were more important sources of information about crimes than family, friends and work colleagues. Essentially, the media, followed by family, were responsible for their opinion of crime in Australia. The studies by Indermaur & Roberts were an extension of research carried out by Weatherburn & Indermaur in 2004 on Public perceptions of crime trends in New South Wales and Western Australia. In summary, research by Indermaur & Roberts has shown that females, older people and inadequately educated people hold inaccurate opinions of