A new research paper from the Australian Institute of Criminology highlights how crime in Australia and in western nations is down over the past decade, and declining.
The paper indicates how wrong and self-servingly tendentious are the caterwauling outbursts from politicians, usually shortly before an election, over individual crimes.
“If you hear a politician declaiming for harsher laws and penalties because of the need for a ‘law and order’ campaign, you will know that he or she is someone who ignores facts and peddles propaganda, totally removed from reality,” CLA CEO Bill Rowlings said.
“Such politicians are self-serving, and serving media proprietors’ interests, rather than the interests and pockets of the Australian people.
“With crime down, imprisonment should be down, which would save all taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. That’s where politicians should be concentrating their crime efforts in the coming decade, in saving taxpayers money.”
The research paper, Improving crime prevention knowledge and practice, by Peter Homel, was released (Dec 09) by the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC).
“Along with many other developed, Western countries, Australia has experienced significant declines in almost all categories of crime over the past decade,” author Homel says.
“Recent figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) confirm a continuing decline in crime in Australia, with a drop of around 10% in most categories of crime from 2006 to 2007 (ABS 2008). The overall victimisation rate in 2005 was 6%, compared with 9% in 2002 (ABS 2006). Significantly, the rates for a range of property crimes in Australia are now at their lowest levels since records were first collected (ABS 2008).
The same is true for Canada and the UK, Mr Homel reports.
“The most recent figures for reported crime in Canada indicate that the 2007 national crime rate is at its lowest for 30 years, with a 7% decline during the previous year representing the third consecutive annual decrease (Dauvergne 2008).
“Similar patterns exist in the UK, where figures show that crime in England and Wales has fallen by 42%, following a peak in 1995, such that the risk of being a victim of crime is now only 24% compared with 40% in 1995 (Kershaw, Nicholas & Walker 2008).”
A report on the most recent International Criminal Victimisation Survey, conducted during 2004–05, shows that crime levels in 2004 had declined to a level similar to that of the late 1980s (van Djik, van Kestern & Smit 2007), Mr Homel said.
The Homel paper calls for ramping up crime prevention programs which have been shown to work. He calls for the setting up of a rime prevention technical assistance fund.
Commenting on the paper, AIC Director Adam Tomison says: “Research from Australia and overseas consistently demonstrates that the effectiveness of many crime prevention initiatives is reduced by a continual lack of access to adequate crime prevention knowledge and technical skills.
“In particular, the internationalisation of crime has highlighted the need for renewed effort aimed at increasing the efficiency of knowledge transfer, skills development, project and program management ability, and performance measurement and evaluation capacity.”
This paper suggests the development of a comprehensive national framework for a technical support program,” Dr Tomison says.
Improving crime prevention knowledge and practice, Peter Homel. Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 385 http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/current%20series/tandi/381-400/tandi385.aspx