tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/crime-statistics-8713/articlesCrime statistics – The Conversation2024-03-25T22:36:21Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2257982024-03-25T22:36:21Z2024-03-25T22:36:21ZAlgorithms that predict crime are watching – and judging us by the cards we’ve been dealt<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583642/original/file-20240322-24-6fviwb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=209%2C341%2C6015%2C4561&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/statue-justice-lady-iustitia-justitia-roman-2166907855">Jbruiz/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Your money, postcode, friends and family can make all the difference to how the criminal system treats you. </p>
<p>The New South Wales police recently scrapped a widely condemned program known as the <a href="https://piac.asn.au/project-highlight/the-suspect-targeting-management-plan/">Suspect Targeting Management Plan</a>. It used algorithmic risk scores to single out “targets”, some as young as ten years old, for police surveillance.</p>
<p>But similar programs remain in place. For instance, Corrective Services NSW uses a <a href="https://criminaljustice.tooltrack.org/tool/16629">statistical assessment tool called LSI-R</a> to predict whether prisoners will reoffend. </p>
<p>“High risk” prisoners receive “high intensity interventions”, and may be denied parole. The <a href="https://correctiveservices.dcj.nsw.gov.au/documents/research-and-statistics/rb29-utility-of-level-of-service-inventory-.pdf">risk scores are calculated</a> from facts such as “criminal friends”, family involvement in crime or drugs, financial problems, living in a “high crime neighbourhood” and frequent changes of address. </p>
<p>A predictive algorithm is a set of rules for computers (and sometimes people) to follow, based on patterns in data. Lots has been written about how algorithms <a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479837243/algorithms-of-oppression/">discriminate against us</a>, from biased search engines to health databases.</p>
<p>In my newly published book, <a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/55116">Artificial Justice</a>, I argue the use of tools that predict our behaviour based on factors like poverty or family background should worry us, too. If we are punished at all, it should be only for what we have done wrong, not for the cards we have been dealt.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/biased-ai-can-be-bad-for-your-health-heres-how-to-promote-algorithmic-fairness-153088">Biased AI can be bad for your health – here's how to promote algorithmic fairness</a>
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<h2>Algorithms are watching us</h2>
<p>Algorithms generate risk scores used in criminal justice systems all over the world. In the United Kingdom, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-black-box-ai-system-has-been-influencing-criminal-justice-decisions-for-over-two-decades-its-time-to-open-it-up-200594">OASys</a> (Offender Assessment System) is used as part of the pre-sentence information given to judges – it shapes bail, parole and sentencing decisions. In the United States, a <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/how-we-analyzed-the-compas-recidivism-algorithm">tool known as COMPAS</a> does something similar.</p>
<p>Risk scores are used beyond criminal justice, too, and they don’t always need computers to generate them. A short survey <a href="https://nida.nih.gov/sites/default/files/opioidrisktool.pdf">known as the Opioid Risk Tool</a> helps doctors in Australia and across the world decide whether to prescribe pain relief for acute and chronic illness, by predicting whether patients will misuse their medications.</p>
<p>Predictive algorithms literally save lives: they are used to allocate donor organs, triage patients and make <a href="https://www.theverge.com/c/22927811/medical-algorithm-explainer-sepsis-risk-watch">urgent medical treatment decisions</a>. But they can also create and sustain unjustified inequalities. </p>
<p>Imagine that we develop an algorithm – “CrimeBuster” – to help police patrol crime “hot spots”. We use data that links crime to areas populated by lower income families. Since we cannot measure “crime” directly, we instead look at rates of arrest.</p>
<p>Yet the fact that arrest rates are high in these areas may just tell us that police spend more time patrolling them. If there is no justification for this practice of intensive policing, rolling out CrimeBuster would give these prejudices the status of policy.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-evidence-is-in-you-cant-link-imprisonment-to-crime-rates-40074">The evidence is in: you can't link imprisonment to crime rates</a>
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<h2>Algorithms are judging us</h2>
<p>The trouble deepens when we use statistics to make predictions about intentional action – the things that we choose to do.</p>
<p>This might be a prediction about whether someone will be a “<a href="https://fama.io/post/toxic-employees-cost-your-enterprise-over-1-million-per-year">toxic</a>” employee, commit crimes or abuse drugs.</p>
<p>The factors that influence these predictions are rarely publicised. For the British sentencing algorithm OASys, they include whether someone has been the victim of <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5d231809ed915d0bb984b2db/oasys-needs-adhoc-stats.pdf">domestic violence</a>.</p>
<p>The American COMPAS system captures parental divorce and <a href="https://www.michigan.gov/-/media/Project/Websites/corrections/progserv/Folder1/Timothy_Brenne_PhD__Meaning_and_Treatment_Implications_of_COMPA_Core_Scales.pdf?rev=70b2e15249b849f6a3fbd8ba613506f6">childhood abuse</a>. The Opioid Risk Tool asks whether the patient’s family has a history of substance abuse, and whether the patient (if female) has a history of “<a href="https://www.health.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/migrated/files/collections/policies-and-guidelines/o/opioid-risk-tool---pdf.pdf">preadolescent sexual abuse</a>”.</p>
<p>In each case, these facts make it more likely that someone will go to prison, miss out on medical treatment, and so on.</p>
<p>We all want to have the chance to make choices true to who we are, and meet our needs and goals. And we want to be afforded the same choices as other people, rather than be singled out as incapable of choosing well.</p>
<p>When we punish someone because of facts they can’t easily influence, we do just this: we treat that person as if they simply cannot help but make bad choices.</p>
<h2>We can’t lock people up just in case</h2>
<p>The problem isn’t the use of algorithms per se. In the 19th century, Italian physician <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesare_Lombroso">Cesare Lombroso</a> argued we could identify “the born criminal” from physical characteristics – a misshapen skull, wide jaw, long limbs or big ears.</p>
<p>Not long after, British criminologist <a href="https://archive.org/details/englishconvictst00goriuoft/page/n387/mode/2up">Charles Goring</a> ran with this idea and argued that certain “defective” mental characteristics made “the fate of imprisonment” inevitable.</p>
<p>Algorithms simply make it much harder to see what’s going on in the world of crime risk assessment.</p>
<p>But when we look, it turns out what’s going on is something pretty similar to the Lombroso-Goring vision: we treat people as if they are fated to do wrong, and lock them up (or keep them locked up) just in case.</p>
<p>Public bodies should be required to publish the facts that inform the predictions behind such decisions. Machine learning should only be used if and to the extent that these publication requirements can be met. This makes it easier to have meaningful conversations about where to draw the line. </p>
<p>In the context of criminal justice, that line is clear. We should only deal out harsher penalties for bad behaviour, not other physical, mental or social characteristics. There are <a href="https://advancingpretrial.org/psa/factors/">plenty of guidelines</a> that take this approach, and this is the line that Australian institutions should toe.</p>
<p>Once penalties for their crime have been applied, prisoners should not be treated differently or locked up for longer because of their friends and family, their financial status or the way in which they’ve been treated at the hands of others.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225798/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tatiana Dancy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Tools used in the criminal justice system predict the risk of crime – but the scores are based on factors completely out of our control.Tatiana Dancy, Associate Professor, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1927882022-11-16T13:29:39Z2022-11-16T13:29:39Z317,793 people were arrested for marijuana possession in 2020 despite the growing legalization movement<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493178/original/file-20221103-24-ztrf84.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C31%2C5217%2C2983&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It's the first year that most drug arrests were not for marijuana possession.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/passing-the-cannabis-joint-royalty-free-image/1360115234?phrase=marijuana&adppopup=true">Cappi Thompson/Moment via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493153/original/file-20221102-12-f92tqx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493153/original/file-20221102-12-f92tqx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493153/original/file-20221102-12-f92tqx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493153/original/file-20221102-12-f92tqx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493153/original/file-20221102-12-f92tqx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493153/original/file-20221102-12-f92tqx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493153/original/file-20221102-12-f92tqx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493153/original/file-20221102-12-f92tqx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>More than 300,000 people were arrested for cannabis possession in 2020, FBI records show. Meanwhile, the drug is being <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/research/health/state-medical-marijuana-laws.aspx">legally sold for a profit in 19 states</a>.</p>
<p>That arrest number may sound high, but arrests have actually been going down each year since 2010 as more states legalize medical or recreational use of the drug. In 2019, for example, <a href="https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/topic-pages/tables/table-29">more than 500,000 marijuana possession arrests were reported</a>, so the 2020 arrest numbers represent a single-year decline of 36%. </p>
<p>In another sign of change, 2020 – the most recent year for which I consider the data reliable – was the first year that marijuana possession was not the most common cause for a drug arrest. Out of roughly 1.16 million drug arrests nationwide that year, 36% were for possessing “other dangerous nonnarcotic drugs” like cocaine and methamphetamine. Just over a quarter (27.5%) were for <a href="https://crime-data-explorer.app.cloud.gov/pages/downloads">possessing marijuana</a>. </p>
<p>Despite these declines, racial disparities have not changed over the past decade. Black Americans accounted for about <a href="https://crime-data-explorer.fr.cloud.gov/pages/docApi">38.8%</a> of marijuana possession arrests in 2020 despite representing just 13.6% of the U.S. population and using marijuana at the same rate as white Americans, <a href="https://www.samhsa.gov/data/report/2020-nsduh-detailed-tables">according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health</a>. </p>
<p>There are some caveats to consider when looking at 2020’s figures. Safety measures taken to limit the spread of COVID-19 – like lockdowns, school closures and work-from-home mandates – resulted in <a href="https://safetyandjusticechallenge.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/The-Impact-of-COVID-19-on-Crime-Arrests-and-Jail-Populations-JFA-Institute.pdf">fewer police-citizen contacts</a>. The number of arrests for all drugs fell by 25% compared with 2019, even though no other drugs were legalized that year. Still, arrests for marijuana declined at an even steeper rate.</p>
<h2>New data reporting problems</h2>
<p>Arrest data for 2021 is also problematic, but for different reasons.</p>
<p>Since the 1920s, the FBI has published crime statistics reported by local law enforcement agencies using the <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/five-things-to-know-about-nibrs-112520">Summary Reporting System</a>. This system always had limitations, notably only counting only the most serious offense even when an arrest involves more than one charge. To improve data collection, the FBI created the <a href="https://bjs.ojp.gov/national-incident-based-reporting-system-nibrs#:%7E:text=As%20of%20January%201%2C%202021,reporting%20in%20the%20United%20States">National Incident-Based Reporting System</a> in the 1980s. The new system, NIBRS, collects much more detailed data. </p>
<p>The FBI has been trying to get law enforcement agencies to use NIBRS for years. Because the transition has been slow, the FBI has continued reporting crime data from the old system, too. <a href="https://www.leafly.com/news/politics/the-fbi-doesnt-know-how-many-marijuana-arrests-were-made-in-2021-and-its-their-own-damn-fault">Advocates</a>, <a href="https://www.marijuanamoment.net/new-fbi-marijuana-arrest-data-riddled-with-inconsistencies-as-agency-touts-changes-to-reporting-system/">journalists</a> and <a href="https://www.bakerinstitute.org/expert/katharine-neill-harris">researchers like me</a> relied on the old system because more police departments used it. </p>
<p>But on Jan. 1, 2021, the FBI started reporting only NIBRS-collected data. The <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/five-things-to-know-about-nibrs-112520">agency insists</a> this is not a serious issue, but only <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/05/us/fbi-national-crime-report-2021-data/">52%</a> of agencies fully reported data last year. Two of the nation’s largest police departments, New York City and Los Angeles, did not report at all. </p>
<p>The low rate of agency participation suggests the FBI’s 2021 estimate of <a href="https://crime-data-explorer.fr.cloud.gov/pages/explorer/crime/arrest">170,856</a> marijuana possession arrests is a big undercount. For instance, in 2020, Florida reported <a href="https://crime-data-explorer.fr.cloud.gov/pages/explorer/crime/arrest">68,614 total drug abuse violations</a>. In 2021, it reported 104 – even though there were no changes to drug laws in the state between those two years. Though growing pains are expected with a major data collection transition, as a researcher I find it concerning to have such low confidence in the numbers meant to capture how laws are enforced. </p>
<h2>Other measures to consider</h2>
<p>Arrests for cannabis possession are dropping, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the legal consequences of marijuana use are disappearing.</p>
<p>Courts often require people to go to treatment for cannabis use. The legal system has been the largest referrer to treatment for <a href="https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/web/ICPSR/series/56">cannabis use since 1995</a>. In 2019, courts, probation and parole offices and diversion programs referred more than <a href="https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/reports/rpt35314/2019_TEDS_3-1-22.pdf">100,000</a> individuals for cannabis use treatment. That accounts for roughly half (49.2%) of all cannabis treatment admissions to publicly funded facilities. Roughly 30% of these justice system referrals came from states in which marijuana use and sales are legal.</p>
<p>In research currently under peer review, my colleague <a href="https://www.bakerinstitute.org/expert/christopher-f-kulesza">Christopher Kulesza</a> and I show that legalization is not associated with a significant decline in justice system referrals to cannabis treatment. Black and Latino adults and juveniles are more likely to be referred to treatment by the justice system than their white counterparts in both states in which marijuana is legal and those where it isn’t.</p>
<p>Failure to comply with mandated treatment programs can result in the same negative consequences as an arrest and conviction, including detrimental effects on an individual’s <a href="https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2019.305464">health</a>, education and <a href="https://www.bakerinstitute.org/research/case-marijuana-decriminalization#:%7E:text=Decriminalization%20would%20result%20in%20a,arrests%20following%20the%20policy%20change">employment prospects</a>. Our findings, along with <a href="http://doi.org/10.1080/10826084.2019.1593007">other</a> <a href="http://doi.org/10.1001/jamahealthforum.2021.3435s">research</a>, suggest that policymakers who want to reduce these consequences must find ways to root out arrest practices that unfairly target minority users and pay more attention to who is being referred for treatment.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192788/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katharine Neill Harris received funding from Ohio State University's Drug Enforcement Policy Center for the research project discussed in this article. </span></em></p>Arrest numbers reflect a nearly 40% decline from 2019, but the statistics come with some caveats.Katharine Neill Harris, Fellow in Drug Policy, Rice UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1929002022-10-24T12:26:40Z2022-10-24T12:26:40ZRepublicans say crime is on the rise – what is the crime rate and what does it mean?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490961/original/file-20221020-15-cwe7bn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2100%2C1401&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Mehmet Oz has talked a lot about the crime rate during his campaign in Pennsylvania.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Election2022PennsylvaniaSenate/d1c89933cd874bdea6c6c3ca8a861edf/photo">AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the lead-up to the 2022 midterm elections, Republican candidates across the nation are <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/republicans-ride-crime-wave-worries-in-midterms-home-stretch/ar-AA12Zj7W">blaming Democrats for an increase in crime</a>. </p>
<p>But as a scholar of criminology and criminal justice, I believe it’s important to note that, despite the <a href="https://host2.adimpact.com/admo/viewer/4f9ccad6-acdb-4498-a405-910fc13b3ae8">apparently confident assertions of politicians</a>, it’s not so easy to make sense of fluctuations in the crime rate. And whether it’s going up or down depends on a few key questions:</p>
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<li>What you mean by “crime,”</li>
<li>What the “up” or “down” comparisons are in reference to, and</li>
<li>The location or area being examined.</li>
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<p>Here’s an explanation of those elements – and why there is no one answer to whether crime has increased in the past year, or over the past decade.</p>
<h2>What is ‘crime,’ anyway?</h2>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490969/original/file-20221020-22-3h2uwx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An email message reads: Three fires in residential neighborhoods in ONE WEEK! Three homeless encampment evictions in that same week! Multiple vehicles broken into in just one neighborhood! A homecoming game interrupted by youth with unmarked guns!" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490969/original/file-20221020-22-3h2uwx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490969/original/file-20221020-22-3h2uwx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490969/original/file-20221020-22-3h2uwx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490969/original/file-20221020-22-3h2uwx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490969/original/file-20221020-22-3h2uwx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490969/original/file-20221020-22-3h2uwx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490969/original/file-20221020-22-3h2uwx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Republican politicians across the nation, including Cicely Davis in Minnesota, are working to get voters concerned about crime.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cicely Davis campaign email</span></span>
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<p>Usually when politicians, public officials and scholars talk about crime statistics, they’re referring to <a href="https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/topic-pages/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement">the most serious crimes</a>, which the FBI officially calls “index” or “Part 1” offenses: criminal homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft and arson.</p>
<p>Because these crimes vary a great deal in terms of seriousness, experts break this list up into “violent” and “property” offenses, so as not to confuse a surge in thefts with an increase in killings.</p>
<p>Each month, state and local police departments tally up the crimes they have handled and send the data to the FBI for inclusion in the nation’s annual <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-can-help-you/need-an-fbi-service-or-more-information/ucr">Uniform Crime Report</a>.</p>
<p>But that system has limitations. According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, <a href="https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/criminal-victimization-2021">fewer than half</a> of all events that could count as crimes actually get reported to police in the first place. And police departments are not required to send information about known crimes to the FBI. So each year what are presented as national crime statistics are derived from whichever of the <a href="https://bjs.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh236/files/media/document/csllea18st.pdf">roughly 17,000 police departments</a> across the country decide to send in their data.</p>
<p>In 2021, the optional nature of reporting crime statistics was a particular problem, because the FBI asked for more detailed information than it had in the past. Historically, the bureau received data from police departments covering about 90% of the U.S. population. But <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/05/us/fbi-national-crime-report-2021-data/index.html">fewer agencies supplied</a> the more detailed data requested in 2021. That data covered only 66% of the nation’s population. And the patchwork wasn’t even: In some states, such as Texas, Ohio and South Carolina, nearly all agencies reported. But in other states, such as Florida, California and New York, <a href="https://public.tableau.com/shared/7969TZHT6?:toolbar=n&:display_count=n&:origin=viz_share_link&:embed=y">participation was abysmal</a>.</p>
<p>With those caveats in mind, the 2021 data estimates that <a href="https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/topic-pages/murder">criminal homicide</a> rose about 4% nationally from 2020 levels. Robberies were down 9%, and aggravated assaults remained relatively unchanged.</p>
<p>Rapes are notoriously <a href="https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/vnrp0610.pdf">underreported to police</a>, but the <a href="https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/criminal-victimization-2021">2021 National Crime Victimization Survey</a> suggests there was no significant change from 2020.</p>
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<h2>What’s the benchmark?</h2>
<p>Those comparisons look at the prior year to assess whether certain types of crime are up or down. Such comparisons may seem straightforward, but violent crime, particularly homicide, is statistically rare enough that a rise or fall from one year to the next doesn’t necessarily mean there is reason to panic or celebrate.</p>
<p>Another way to assess trends is to look at as much data as possible. <a href="https://crime-data-explorer.app.cloud.gov/pages/home">Over the past 36 years</a>, clear trends have emerged. The national homicide rate in 2021 wasn’t as high as it was in the early 1990s, but 2021’s figure is the highest in nearly 25 years.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, robberies have been trending steadily downward for the better part of 30 years. And though the aggravated assault rate didn’t change much from 2020 to 2021, it is clearly higher now than at any time during the 2010s.</p>
<p><iframe id="ph5rv" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/ph5rv/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Crime is highly localized</h2>
<p>These figures are imperfect in other ways, too. The data being used in today’s assertions about crime rates is more than 10 months old and presents national figures that mask a substantial amount of local variation. The FBI won’t release 2022 crime data until the fall of 2023. </p>
<p>But there is more current data available: The consulting firm AH Datalytics has a free <a href="https://www.ahdatalytics.com/dashboards/ytd-murder-comparison/">dashboard</a> that compiles more up-to-date murder data from 99 big cities. </p>
<p>As of October 2022, it indicates that murder in big cities is down about 5% in 2022 when compared with the first 10 months of 2021. But this aggregate change masks the fact that murder is up 85% in Colorado Springs, Colo.; 33% in Birmingham, Ala.; 28% in New Orleans; and 27% in Charlotte, N.C. Meanwhile, murder is down 38% in Columbus, Ohio; 29% in Richmond, Va.; and 18% in Chicago.</p>
<p>Even these city-level statistics don’t tell the whole story. It is now <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12070">well established</a> that crime is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-9125.1989.tb00862.x">not randomly distributed across communities</a>. Instead, it clusters in small areas that criminologists and police departments often refer to as “hot spots.” What this means is that regardless of whether crime is up or down in cities, a handful of neighborhoods in those cities are likely still significantly and disproportionately affected by violence.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192900/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Justin Nix does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Whether crime is up or down depends on what kind of crime, what the comparison is to, and where you’re counting crimes.Justin Nix, Associate Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Nebraska OmahaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1905202022-10-04T12:22:44Z2022-10-04T12:22:44ZBandits are losing interest in robbing banks, as some crimes no longer pay<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487121/original/file-20220928-6297-ofp76c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=23%2C42%2C3121%2C1994&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">John Dillinger, played by Warren Oates (pictured) in the 1973 film 'Dillinger,' allegedly robbed 24 banks.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/john-dillinger-played-by-warren-oates-and-his-girl-billie-frechette-picture-id515575178?k=20&m=515575178&s=612x612&w=0&h=ueSWiXr18e7vUntDe5E3u5V5k26Vqo6u50ldjObm2aU=">Bettmann via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Bank robbery is a high-profile crime that fascinates many people.</p>
<p>Movies have been made about famous bank robbers like <a href="https://decider.com/2019/03/28/bonnie-and-clyde-movies/">Bonnie and Clyde</a>, <a href="https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/26608/dillinger#overview">John</a><a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/dillinger-1973">Dillinger</a> and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064115/">Butch Cassidy</a>. There is even a new <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9853500/">movie that just came out about Gilbert Galvan</a>, Canada’s most prolific bank robber who robbed 59 banks in five years.</p>
<p>It might surprise you – as it did me – to learn that the number of bank robberies is the lowest it’s been in half a century.</p>
<p>That’s <a href="http://businessmacroeconomics.com/">what I</a> discovered while researching a book about the shift to a cashless economy. With people using less cash, I had expected fewer bank robberies. But I was startled to see that the downward trend started well before the <a href="https://www.igi-global.com/dictionary/cashless-economy/68569">cashless economy</a> started springing up in the 2000s. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487126/original/file-20220928-8992-z93org.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A white man holds a white hat in his right hand and a woman in his left in front of a classic car in a black and white photo" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487126/original/file-20220928-8992-z93org.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487126/original/file-20220928-8992-z93org.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=783&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487126/original/file-20220928-8992-z93org.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=783&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487126/original/file-20220928-8992-z93org.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=783&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487126/original/file-20220928-8992-z93org.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487126/original/file-20220928-8992-z93org.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487126/original/file-20220928-8992-z93org.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow traveled the U.S. with their gang during the Great Depression, robbing banks, stores and funeral homes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/bonnie-and-clyde-bonnie-elizabeth-parker-and-clyde-chestnut-barrow-picture-id1404440736?k=20&m=1404440736&s=612x612&w=0&h=DkH3DFesRYrNJuod4iRC0Xuuoiq6jYqEimG6dNiXvz0=">Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Bling Ring’ and the ‘Ninja’</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.netflix.com/title/81393722">Movies often depict bank robbery as precision plots</a> planned by smart crooks. However, this doesn’t match reality. Most bank robberies are committed by people simply walking in and demanding money from a teller. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/bankcrimestatistics-annual_2021.pdf/view">In 2021</a>, about 85% of bank crime was committed at the tellers’ counter. The vast majority of thieves either passed a note to the cashier or made a verbal demand. Very few incidents involved burglary, when a thief enters the bank during nonbusiness hours, or larceny, when money is stolen with no direct confrontation with employees.</p>
<p>Over half of all cases involve a weapon being brandished or a threat to use one. This results in many <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/bank_robbery.pdf">bank robberies</a> becoming <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/153476560200800402">traumatic</a> and <a href="https://istss.org/public-resources/trauma-blog/2014-april/bank-robbery-%E2%80%93-a-neglected-potential-traumatic-exp">dangerous events</a> for <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdtn/victim-witness-program/when-bank-employees-become-victims-robbery">employees and customers in the bank</a>. Since 1999, <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/resources/library/bank-crime-statistics">15 people have been killed</a> in bank robberies, 94 were injured and 62 were taken hostage.</p>
<p>Law enforcement perpetuates the mystique of bank robbery by giving many robbers interesting nicknames, as you can see from the <a href="https://bankrobbers.fbi.gov/">FBI website devoted</a> just to them. </p>
<p>For example, the FBI is offering US$2,000 for information leading to the arrest of the “<a href="https://bankrobbers.fbi.gov/albuquerque/2022-08-04-0330682993">Bling Ring Bandit</a>,” who stole an undisclosed sum from a bank in Albuquerque, New Mexico, while wearing a large gold-colored ring on his right little finger. My favorite is the “<a href="https://bankrobbers.fbi.gov/albuquerque/2022-04-27-8404761904">Ninja Bank Robber</a>,” who was covered in black from head to toe during his April 2022 robbery. </p>
<p>Because there are different types of bank robberies, there are a <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2113">variety of prison sentences for those caught</a>. Robbers using force or violence get a maximum sentence of 20 years. Hurt someone while robbing a bank and the maximum sentence increases to 25 years. Kill someone and face death or life imprisonment.</p>
<p>Robbers who don’t use weapons face less time. Robbing a bank of more than $1,000 without using force is a sentence of up to 10 years. Stealing less than $1,000 without force has a maximum sentence of only one year.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="several men with guns point them at bank tellers in black and white photo" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487129/original/file-20220928-24-aurgse.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487129/original/file-20220928-24-aurgse.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487129/original/file-20220928-24-aurgse.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487129/original/file-20220928-24-aurgse.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487129/original/file-20220928-24-aurgse.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487129/original/file-20220928-24-aurgse.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487129/original/file-20220928-24-aurgse.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">About half of bank robberies involve a weapon or a threat to use one.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/11261929pittsburgh-pastick-em-up-is-the-cry-of-these-bank-robbers-as-picture-id515305922?k=20&m=515305922&s=612x612&w=0&h=syfvc6OVcfWJSVrJhnBRjDnsW3BpllsuoLZcP_TR12M=">Bettmann via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Bank heists are going out of style</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://le.fbi.gov/file-repository/about-the-ucr-program.pdf">FBI has been tracking bank robberies</a> and other crime in the U.S. since the 1930s. Unfortunately, early data was based only on voluntary reports from police chiefs of very large cities. Moreover, early data was <a href="https://ucr.fbi.gov/additional-ucr-publications/ucr_handbook.pdf">not standardized when multiple offenses were committed</a>, like bank robbers who stole a getaway car. </p>
<p>This resulted in very low figures, like 1948 having only 53 bank robberies. Higher-quality bank robbery data began around 1970, when the FBI’s <a href="https://archive.org/details/pub_crime-in-the-united-states">Uniform Crime Reports</a> reported just over 2,000.</p>
<p>The number of U.S. bank robberies peaked in 1991 when 9,388 where committed. The number has declined pretty much ever since. By 2021, it was just 1,724 after hitting a 51-year low of 1,500 in 2020. </p>
<iframe title="Bank robberies are going down" aria-label="Column Chart" id="datawrapper-chart-2rv1m" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/2rv1m/4/" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" style="border: none;" width="100%" height="320"></iframe>
<h2>A less lucrative career path</h2>
<p>One potential reason for the downward trend could be that punishments have increased, thus acting as a deterrent and convincing would-be bank robbers to find another line of work. This reason doesn’t hold up, however, as the data shows judges are giving shorter, not longer, sentences. A 2021 analysis found the typical bank robber, most of whom used guns, was sent to <a href="https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/research-publications/2022/20220818_Robbery.pdf">prison for fewer than seven years</a>. A <a href="https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/102193NCJRS.pdf">mid-1980s</a> study put the median sentence at 10 years if a gun wasn’t used, and 15 if a gun was involved. </p>
<p>Another explanation could be that there are fewer banks to rob. After peaking at over 85,000 in 2009, the number of bank branches in the U.S. <a href="https://banks.data.fdic.gov/explore/historical">has declined to a little over 72,000</a>. </p>
<p>A more <a href="http://doi.org/10.1007/s11293-006-9033-y">compelling reason</a> for me is that robbing banks has <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/467508">become far less lucrative</a> – after adjusting for inflation, anyway. The typical robber <a href="https://archive.org/details/pub_crime-in-the-united-state">made away with about $5,200</a> in the late 1960s. That’s over $38,000 in 2019 dollars. But in 2019, the <a href="https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/topic-pages/tables/table-23">average was just $4,200</a>. As a <a href="http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1740-9713.2012.00570.x">2007 U.K. study on the topic</a> noted, “The return on an average bank robbery is, frankly, rubbish.” </p>
<p>As it turns out, <a href="https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2021/06/16/the-methods-and-menace-of-the-new-bank-robbers">cyber heists are much more lucrative</a>, with even fewer penalties. A government report showed that in 2016, convicted credit card offenders <a href="https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/quick-facts/Credit_Card_Fraud_FY16.pdf">took in over $60,000</a> on average and were given a prison sentence of just a little over two years.</p>
<p>Willie Sutton was an infamous U.S. bank robber during the 1920s and 1930s. When asked why he robbed banks, <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/175520/where-the-money-was-by-willie-sutton-with-edward-linn/9780767918138">Sutton supposedly replied</a>, “Because that’s where the money is.” While in Sutton’s time that may have been true, it may not be the case today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190520/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jay L. Zagorsky does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The number of bank robberies is at about the lowest since the 1960s. A researcher investigates why.Jay L. Zagorsky, Clinical associate professor, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1832352022-06-02T14:17:00Z2022-06-02T14:17:00ZNigerian property crime could be reduced if neighbourhoods were better designed<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464514/original/file-20220520-24-5xelh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Some physical developments contribute to crime in Nigeria. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/detached-three-bedroom-apartments-are-pictured-at-haggai-news-photo/151044248?adppopup=true">Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP via Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Nigeria has a very high crime rate. The Global Peace Index ranked it the world’s <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/273160/countries-with-the-least-peace-worldwide/">17th least peaceful state</a>. Discussion of crime in Nigeria tends to focus on insurgency, terrorism and kidnapping, but other types of crime are thriving too.</p>
<p>According to the National Bureau of Statistics, <a href="https://www.proshareng.com/news/Frauds---Scandals/134,663-Crime-Cases-Were-Reported-in-201/40508">134,663</a> cases of offences were reported in 2017. Offences against property make up the <a href="https://www.proshareng.com/news/Frauds---Scandals/134,663-Crime-Cases-Were-Reported-in-201/40508">highest number of cases reported</a>. As of March 2022, Nigerians reported <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1200186/levels-of-worry-related-to-different-crimes-in-nigeria/">they worried most</a> about robbery, theft and break-ins. The level of concern stood at 66.04 points, on a scale from 0 to 100 (where 100 represents the highest concern).</p>
<p>Governments can respond to crime in <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-13-8215-4?noAccess=true">various ways</a>, like making and enforcing laws and addressing the root causes of crime. Another avenue to explore is crime prevention through spatial design.</p>
<h2>Built environment influences crime</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/7/3056">Research</a> has shown that features of the built environment influence crime. </p>
<p>Physical developments and locations can contribute to crime through flawed planning or structural design. It can also be lack of maintenance, access control, territorial reinforcement and surveillance. The plan and design of the built environment should ideally form part of a broader approach to crime prevention and community policing. This is known as “Crime Prevention through Environmental Design”.</p>
<p>I conducted a <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320456478_Crime_Risk_Interpretation_in_Nigerian_Built_Environment_The_case_of_Minna_Niger_State">study</a> in Minna, Niger State, north central Nigeria, on how street layout, the neighbourhood composition, the routine activities, and resident’s lifestyle influence the risks of crime. Respondents answered questions on experience of crime in the 12 months prior to the survey. </p>
<p>The responses showed that experiences and perceptions of crime varied significantly across neighbourhoods. Socio-economic, environmental design and land use variables accounted for this variation. The findings also emphasised the importance of manipulation of the physical, built environment as ways of reducing crime.</p>
<h2>Crime prevention through environmental design</h2>
<p>The concept of <a href="https://cpted.net/">crime prevention through environmental design</a> has been in existence for decades. Law enforcement agencies worldwide use it.</p>
<p><a href="https://books.google.com.ng/books/about/Crime_Prevention_Through_Environmental_D.html?id=prgIS7CH9F8C&redir_esc=y">Proper design and effective use of the built environment</a> can reduce the fear and incidence of crime, and improve quality of life. </p>
<p>It generally consists of surveillance, access control, territorial reinforcement, and space management. </p>
<p>Surveillance means that people can see what others are doing. This will deter would-be offenders from committing crime. Clear sightlines, effective lighting and landscaping can reduce the chances that offenders can hide or entrap victims. </p>
<p>Access control is the use of physical or symbolic barriers to attract, channel, or restrict the movement of people. This can be achieved through landscaping, fencing, gates, and other forms of technology that manage entry and exit to particular locations. </p>
<p>Territorial reinforcement signifies ownership. Well-maintained properties with clearly defined purposes send signals that the occupants are on guard. Providing a sense of ownership over an area encourages responsibility for managing the area and intervening if problems arise. </p>
<p>Space management relates to sustaining attractive, well-maintained, and well used spaces. Activity coordination, cleanliness, rapid repair of vandalism, and removing abandoned vehicles and graffiti are space management practices. So are replacing burned out lighting, and removing or refurbishing decayed physical elements.</p>
<p>My recent <a href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/PM-02-2019-0009/full/html">study</a> examined these ideas from the perspective of property development firms and residents in Benin City. This capital of Nigeria’s Edo State is <a href="https://ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/jgg/article/view/68087">growing rapidly</a> and had <a href="https://ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/jgg/article/view/68087">the highest crime rate</a> in Nigeria in 2016 after Lagos, Abuja and Delta. Break-ins, robbery, kidnapping and ritual killings topped the list of crime incidents.</p>
<p>I used a questionnaire to collect data from representatives of 35 property firms and 362 residents. Findings show that: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>crime risk assessment is not one of the requirements for development approval</p></li>
<li><p>more than half (67%) of residents had been victims of burglary and theft</p></li>
<li><p>most developers (74%) and residents (79%) expect burglary and theft to increase in future</p></li>
<li><p>some developers and residents have spent money on crime prevention through environment such as fencing, lighting, access control and surveillance among others</p></li>
<li><p>about 88% of these attempts were not appropriately applied in a way that effective crime prevention could be achieved</p></li>
<li><p>most of the developers (91%) and residents (84%) were of the opinion that properly applied crime prevention would deter burglary and theft. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>The developers and residents therefore need more help to know how to get it right. </p>
<h2>Implications for fighting crime in Nigeria</h2>
<p>Environmental impact assessments provide that certain developments must be designed to prevent damage to the environment. Similarly, developments should be designed to prevent or neutralise crime. Crime risk assessment and crime prevention through environmental design should formally be part of the Nigerian urban planning landscape. </p>
<p>Guidelines could be created to help town planning authorities assess development proposals in terms of crime risks. The guidelines should suggest that town planning authorities have an obligation to ensure that a development prevents or minimises crime risks that users and the community are exposed to. </p>
<p>Such developments would include a new or refurbished shopping centre, transport facility or interchange, large scale residential development, recreational facility or public place. </p>
<p>The implementation of the guideline provisions should be done by trained town planners or urban designers. </p>
<p>The introduction of these guidelines should be supported by a special course in police training.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183235/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adewumi I. Badiora does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Nigeria’s built environment should ideally be part of a broader, integrated approach to crime prevention and community policing.Adewumi I. Badiora, Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Olabisi Onabanjo UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1561032021-03-01T00:27:50Z2021-03-01T00:27:50ZDespite claims NZ’s policing is too ‘woke’, crime rates are largely static — and even declining<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386872/original/file-20210228-19-1rmoswi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=50%2C92%2C1667%2C1086&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock/Kenneth William Caleno</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When National <a href="https://www.parliament.nz/en/mps-and-electorates/members-of-parliament/bridges-simon">MP Simon Bridges</a> called Police Commissioner Andrew Coster a “<a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/124329506/national-party-mp-simon-bridges-lashes-out-at-wokester-police-commissioner-andy-coster">wokester</a>” recently, his intention was apparently to suggest the police are too soft on crime.</p>
<p>Debating the concept of “policing by consent” during a recent select committee hearing, Bridges <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300239000/bridges-v-coster-top-cop-in-fiery-spat-with-national-mp-over-gang-numbers-and-policing-by-consent">asked Coster</a>: “Do the police still arrest people in this country?”</p>
<p>One inference to be drawn from Bridges’s statements is that crime in New Zealand is increasing, possibly due to lenient policing. </p>
<p>To test that, we collected publicly available crime data from <a href="https://www.police.govt.nz/about-us/publications-statistics/data-and-statistics/policedatanz">New Zealand Police</a>. To measure any recent patterns we looked at data for the past six years, 2015 to 2020.</p>
<p>The first category we looked at is what the police call “victimisation”. This includes the total number of cases involving:</p>
<ul>
<li>acts intended to cause injury </li>
<li>sexual assault and related offences</li>
<li>abduction, harassment etc.</li>
<li>robbery, extortion and related offenses</li>
<li>burglary, breaking and entering and unlawful entry</li>
<li>theft and related offences.</li>
</ul>
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<p>Out of the six categories, it is clear most crimes involve injury, burglary and theft. The numbers for the other three crimes are negligible.</p>
<p>But the pattern is clear — there is no significant increase in crime across the six years, and there is no significant increase in any of the individual components.</p>
<p>A potential concern with the broad victimisation measure is that it may not fully capture the specific nature of crimes. For example, it is possible some crime is concentrated in certain locations and some victims are falling prey multiple times. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/policing-by-consent-is-not-woke-it-is-fundamental-to-a-democratic-society-155866">Policing by consent is not ‘woke’ — it is fundamental to a democratic society</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<p>But if we look at the number of unique victims, we are now only counting each victim once, irrespective of how many times they were victimised during the 12 months in question. </p>
<p>According to the police, this data set can be used to understand repeat victimisation patterns.</p>
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<p>Once again the pattern is clear — there is no evidence of any significant increase in the number of unique victims over the past six years.</p>
<p>Victims, of course, are only one part of the story. We can also look at the number of unique offenders.</p>
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<p>Here we see a steady decline in the number of offenders. Again, one could look at multiple ways of measuring this, but the evidence presented above does not suggest a massive increase in offending.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-christchurch-commissions-call-to-improve-social-cohesion-is-its-hardest-and-most-important-recommendation-149969">The Christchurch commission’s call to improve social cohesion is its hardest — and most important — recommendation</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In the next two figures we drill down a little further and look at two separate and specific types of crimes.</p>
<p>Figure 4 looks at illicit drug offences. This is important because the general data on victimisation does not include so-called victimless crimes (such as drug possession).</p>
<p>Here, there is evidence of an increase, albeit a modest one: roughly 13%, from 8,772 in 2015 to 9,924 in 2020. It is possible this is due to either increased drug offences or to increased prosecutions. </p>
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<p>Finally, in Figure 5 we look at a category that tends to involve small numbers but receives great attention in political debates: prohibited and regulated weapons and explosives offences. </p>
<p>Again we see a modest increase of about 14%, from 3,747 in 2015 to 4,281 in 2020.</p>
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<p>Objectively, it seems hard to make the case that crime in New Zealand has increased dramatically over the past six years. In fact, some categories of crime may have actually declined. </p>
<p>But even if crime levels are relatively static, are they still too high? </p>
<p>If we look at the first victimisation measure only, there were a total of 239,519 cases in 2020 from a population of five million. That is approximately five out of every 100 people. </p>
<p>That may not appear to be a very high number, but some of these crimes will be more serious than others. The ideal trend, of course, would be declining numbers to the point of no measurable crime at all.</p>
<p>Unlikely, perhaps, but something Simon Bridges and Andrew Coster might agree on, at least.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/156103/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ananish Chaudhuri has received funding from the Royal Society New Zealand Marsden Fund.
The author gratefully acknowledges research assistance from Ishannita Chaudhuri.
</span></em></p>Recent political arguments about policing methods aren’t supported by the evidence: New Zealand crime rates are static, and even declining in some categories.Ananish Chaudhuri, Professor of Behavioural and Experimental Economics, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata RauLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1412892020-07-06T02:28:52Z2020-07-06T02:28:52Z$2.5 billion lost over a decade: ‘Nigerian princes’ lose their sheen, but scams are on the rise<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345461/original/file-20200703-33926-nxbl9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=173%2C41%2C5329%2C3621&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Last year, Australians reported more than A$634 million lost to fraud, a significant jump from $489.7 million the year before.</p>
<p>The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has released its latest annual <a href="https://www.accc.gov.au/publications/targeting-scams-report-on-scam-activity/targeting-scams-2019-a-review-of-scam-activity-since-2009">Targeting Scams</a> report.</p>
<p>But despite increased awareness, scam alerts and targeted education campaigns, more Australians are being targeted than ever before. </p>
<p>With all the technological tools we have, why does fraud continue to be so pervasive? And how can the damage be reduced?</p>
<h2>Latest key findings</h2>
<p>According to the ACCC’s report, “<a href="https://eprints.qut.edu.au/200621/">business email compromise</a>” fraud rose to dominance in 2019. </p>
<p>At $132 million, it became the highest category of financial loss reported – the first time this has happened. This usually involves using <a href="https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/types-of-scams/attempts-to-gain-your-personal-information/phishing">phishing</a> and hacking to infiltrate company systems and email accounts. </p>
<p>Offenders can intercept payment invoices, or create their own, and funnel victims’ funds into their own accounts. Businesses and individuals make their payments as usual, but unknowingly pay the offender. </p>
<p>Investment and romance schemes also continue to defraud victims. Reports of investment fraud totalled $126 million, up from $80 million in 2018. And romance fraud losses totalled $83 million, up from $60.5 million in 2018.</p>
<p>Overall, men reported higher financial losses ($77.5 million) than women ($63.6 million).</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1273135104827756545"}"></div></p>
<h2>Years of statistics</h2>
<p>Reflecting on <a href="https://www.accc.gov.au/publications/targeting-scams-report-on-scam-activity/targeting-scams-report-on-scam-activity-2009">a decade</a> of the ACCC’s Targeting Scams reports, we can see how fraud has changed with the times. </p>
<p>Since the first report in 2009 (which recorded $69.9 million in losses) Australians have collectively reported more than <a href="https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/news-alerts/scams-cost-australians-over-630-million">$2.5 billion</a> in losses.</p>
<p>The number of reports has increased significantly. While this likely reflects a higher percentage of the population being targeted, it also represents more authorities receiving complaints and contributing statistics. </p>
<p>For instance, 2019 marked the first year the big four Australian banks (Westpac, NAB, Commonwealth Bank and ANZ) contributed their data. </p>
<h2>The ‘prince of Nigeria’ needs your help</h2>
<p>Today’s offenders have very different approaches to those of ten years ago. There were once many more stories of <a href="https://www.bbb.org/new-york-city/get-consumer-help/articles/the-nigerian-prince-old-scam-new-twist/">Nigerian princes</a> (although these <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-nigerian-prince-scams-continue-to-dupe-us-98232">still exist</a>). </p>
<p>These days, victims are most often contacted by telephone, although email, text message and social media communications are also common. </p>
<p>Payment methods have advanced, too, with <a href="https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/blog/2019/11/scams-telling-you-pay-bitcoin-rise">bitcoin</a> and cryptocurrencies becoming popular ways for offenders to receive money.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345462/original/file-20200703-33947-9zlsc4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345462/original/file-20200703-33947-9zlsc4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345462/original/file-20200703-33947-9zlsc4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345462/original/file-20200703-33947-9zlsc4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345462/original/file-20200703-33947-9zlsc4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345462/original/file-20200703-33947-9zlsc4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345462/original/file-20200703-33947-9zlsc4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345462/original/file-20200703-33947-9zlsc4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">According to the ACCC’s 2019 report, men were more likely to report losses to investment fraud, while women were the major target for romance fraud.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Why is fraud still so successful?</h2>
<p>While technology has long helped scammers, it has also helped improve cyber security options such as antivirus software, and email filters to block spam. So why do we still have fraud?</p>
<p>Essentially, fraud takes a human approach. Criminals seek to capitalise on victims’ weaknesses in a calculated manner. For example, this year Australians looking to buy pets during lockdown lost almost $300,000 to <a href="https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/news-alerts/dont-get-scammed-looking-for-a-lockdown-puppy">puppy scams</a>.</p>
<p>Offenders have also shifted their focus to counteract fraud prevention messages to the public from police and other agencies. One prime example is the <a href="https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/1557_Little%20Black%20Book%20of%20Scams%202019_FA%20WEB.pdf">Little Black Book of Scams</a> released by the ACCC <a href="https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/news-alerts/the-new-little-black-book-of-scams-is-here">in 2008</a>. </p>
<p>It provides comprehensive details of many common fraud schemes and has influenced fraud-prevention messaging across both the <a href="https://www.met.police.uk/SysSiteAssets/media/downloads/central/advice/fraud/met/the-little-book-of-big-scams.pdf">United Kingdom</a> and <a href="https://www.competitionbureau.gc.ca/eic/site/cb-bc.nsf/eng/04333.html">Canada</a>.</p>
<p>To counter prevention messaging, offenders now recruit Australians to launder their funds. Known as “<a href="https://www.acic.gov.au/media-centre/joint-media-releases/world-wide-week-action-targeting-money-mules">money mules</a>”, they are often victims themselves, asked to receive and transfer money on behalf of offenders. </p>
<p>From a victim’s perspective, there are fewer red flags when asked to send money to a Big Four bank account in Melbourne, compared to sending money to Lagos.</p>
<p>Similarly, since there has been a strong push against sending money to people you don’t know, offenders have embraced the use of romance fraud (which targeted more women than men in 2019). </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-catfish-to-romance-fraud-how-to-avoid-getting-caught-in-any-online-scam-115227">From catfish to romance fraud, how to avoid getting caught in any online scam</a>
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<p>Offenders develop relationships and build trust to eventually cheat victims. And as last year’s report notes, they are now initiating relationships through channels other than dating apps, such as Instagram and even the online game <a href="https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/news-alerts/romance-scammers-move-to-new-apps-costing-aussies-more-than-286-million">Words with Friends</a>. </p>
<p>With a focus on building relationships with victims, fraud requests are no longer as outrageous as they once were (although this <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/nigerian-astronaut-space-trapped_n_56c2ced4e4b0c3c550527f0b?ri18n=true">Nigerian astronaut</a> scam was an exception). </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345694/original/file-20200706-33913-35lkyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345694/original/file-20200706-33913-35lkyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345694/original/file-20200706-33913-35lkyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345694/original/file-20200706-33913-35lkyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345694/original/file-20200706-33913-35lkyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345694/original/file-20200706-33913-35lkyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345694/original/file-20200706-33913-35lkyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345694/original/file-20200706-33913-35lkyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">As cybersecurity features such as email spam filters advance, attackers are finding new, innovative ways to deceive victims.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Manipulation and monopolising on emotions</h2>
<p>As we gain a better understanding of how offenders operate, we’re starting to learn how effectively victims can be persuaded. </p>
<p>Fraud relies on the use of <a href="https://eprints.qut.edu.au/66444/">social engineering</a> techniques such as authority and urgency to gain compliance. Offenders often take on the identity of someone with power and status to persuade victims to send money. They also stress the urgency of the request, to stop victims from thinking too much. </p>
<p><a href="https://eprints.qut.edu.au/118434/">Psychological abuse</a> techniques are also used to isolate and monopolise on victims. In this way, offenders try to remove victims from their support networks and place an air of secrecy around their interactions. And this limits a victims ability to seek support when needed. </p>
<p>There has been a greater recognition of the problem across government and industry. Despite this, there’s still often a sense of <a href="https://eprints.qut.edu.au/83702/">shame and embarrassment</a> at being deceived, and victims have difficulty <a href="https://aic.gov.au/publications/tandi/tandi518">reporting</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/inside-the-mind-of-the-online-scammer-127471">Inside the mind of the online scammer</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Defences for the future</h2>
<p>The latest Targeting Scams report shows us offenders are still looking to gain a financial advantage, and will do whatever it takes. While you can’t guarantee safety, there are some simple steps that can help reduce the likelihood of fraud:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>recognise your own vulnerability to fraud. Everyone is a potential target.</p></li>
<li><p>talk about fraud-related experiences with family and friends in a non-judgemental way. Offenders want victims to stay silent.</p></li>
<li><p>in an uncertain situation, don’t feel pressured to xfrespond, as offenders rely on people making quick decisions. Hang up the phone, delete the email, or simply step back.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Now, more than ever, we must recognise the prevalence of fraud and the ways it impacts individuals and organisations across society. If we can learn from the past decade, maybe we can improve our defences for the next decade. </p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cassandra Cross is affiliated with the Cybersecurity Cooperative Research Centre. She has also received funding from the Australian Institute of Criminology</span></em></p>Last year, men were more likely to report losses to investment fraud, while women were the main target for romance fraud. Overall, men reported higher financial loss.Cassandra Cross, Senior Research Fellow, Faculty of Law, Cybersecurity Cooperative Research Centre, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1163162019-05-02T11:42:45Z2019-05-02T11:42:45ZStreet drinking, fly-tipping and nuisance neighbours: who experiences anti-social behaviour?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272207/original/file-20190502-103049-1e429kp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Anti-social. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">J Walters/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For some people who repeatedly experience or witness anti-social behaviour it can have a devastating affect on their lives. A new report from the Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales has <a href="https://victimscommissioner.org.uk/published-reviews/anti-social-behaviour-living-a-nightmare/">called it a “living nightmare”</a>. Findings from our ongoing research were included in the Commissioner’s report and they help to explain who is experiencing anti-social behaviour and in what context. </p>
<p>Anti-social behaviour is <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2014/12/contents/enacted">defined</a> in UK law as “conduct that has caused, or is likely to cause, harassment, alarm or distress to any person”. This might include, for example, nuisance neighbours, street drinking, fly tipping or evidence of drug use. The latest figures from the <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/crimeinenglandandwales/yearendingdecember2018">Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW)</a> suggest that 37% of those who responded to the survey had experienced or witnessed some form of anti-social behaviour in their local area in the year ending December 2018 – the highest percentage since this data was first collected. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/surveys/informationforhouseholdsandindividuals/householdandindividualsurveys/crimesurveyforenglandandwales">CSEW</a> is widely considered to be the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/legal-information-management/article/choosing-and-using-statistical-sources-in-criminology-what-can-the-crime-survey-for-england-and-wales-tell-us/BBCB2D03249DC8C7CAFBA16D4B8C2FBD">best source </a> of victimisation data internationally. Conducted since 1981, the survey collects information on experiences of crime and anti-social behaviour, and other contextual information on victims, such as their household and where they live. </p>
<p>Respondents are asked if they have experienced or witnessed anti-social behaviour within a 15-minute walk of their home in the previous 12 months, how often the incidents happened, and what happened next. In our analysis of data on anti-social behaviour from the CSEW, we found that five key themes emerged. </p>
<h2>Repeated behaviour</h2>
<p>First, certain types of anti-social behaviour are more common than others. These include street drinking or drunken behaviour – which accounted for 11.5% of those who reported experiencing or witnessing some form of anti-social behaviour. Other common behaviour were the category of youths, teenagers or groups “hanging about on the streets” (9.5%), inconsiderate behaviour, such as repeated use of fireworks or people throwing stones (7.1%), and anti-social behaviour related to vehicles, such as inconvenient parking or speeding cars (5.1%).</p>
<p>Second, we also found that certain types of anti-social behaviour were more prone to repetition, including environmental nuisances – such as litter, fly tipping or dog fouling – as well as begging, behaviour related to vehicles, and people using or dealing drugs. </p>
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<p>As the graph above shows, for the majority of the types of anti-social behaviour that we analysed, more than half of those experiencing or witnessing the behaviour, did so at least once a month. This highlights the repetitive and persistent nature of much anti-social behaviour. It also underlines the importance of not viewing incidents in isolation, a point echoed in the Victims’ Commissioner’s report.</p>
<p>Third, certain people and households are more likely to experience anti-social behaviour – and this varies depending on the type of behaviour. Those more likely to witness street drinking or drunken behaviour, for example, tend to be younger, white people with educational qualifications. They also tend to have lived in a terraced house or flat in an urban, income-deprived, higher-crime area for more than 12 months.</p>
<p>Those more likely to witness youths, teenagers or groups hanging about, also tend to be younger with educational qualifications. However, they tend to have a household income of more than £30,000 and have lived in a flat in an area with higher-income deprivation for more than 12 months. Having said this, the households who are more likely to experience anti-social behaviour are not necessarily the same as those who report the highest impact on their quality of life.</p>
<h2>Quality of life</h2>
<p>Fourth, we found that nuisance neighbours and out of control or dangerous dogs are the types of anti-social behaviour that have the greatest impact on quality of life. The <a href="https://s3-eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/victcomm2-prod-storage-119w3o4kq2z48/uploads/2019/04/ASB-report.pdf">report</a> from the Victims’ Commissioner presents a number of case studies illustrating the devastating impact anti-social neighbours can have on a person’s life. One victim, for example, said: “The stress and sleep deprivation he caused wrecked my mental and physical health.”</p>
<p>The CSEW provides a more accurate picture of the extent and nature of crime and anti-social behaviour than data records of police incidents do. The final evidence our analysis showed was that approximately 31% of incidents of anti-social behaviour are reported to the police, local authority or to a housing association or private landlord.</p>
<p>While it’s still unclear why so few incidents are reported, one potential reason, highlighted by victims interviewed in the Victims’ Commissioner <a href="https://s3-eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/victcomm2-prod-storage-119w3o4kq2z48/uploads/2019/04/ASB-report.pdf">report</a>, could relate to issues regarding the 101 non-emergency phone line which costs 15p per minute. While victims are encouraged to call 101, rather than the free 999 service used to report crime, often they can face long delays.</p>
<p>In relation to crime, the CSEW reveals a variety of reasons why <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/adhocs/007750reasonsfornotreportingcrimetothepolice2016to2017crimesurveyforenglandandwales">some victims don’t report incidents to the police</a>, including that they felt the incident was too trivial, that the police couldn’t do anything, or that they dealt with the incident themselves. It’s possible the same reasons could apply to anti-social behaviour.</p>
<p>Understanding who is most likely to experience anti-social behaviour can inform interventions to prevent the recurrence of incidents and the accumulation of the harms it causes. At a time when many organisations’ resources are stretched, it makes sense to focus efforts where they are most needed: towards victims of potentially high harm, repeated and persistent anti-social behaviour.</p>
<p>Our findings also highlight the diverse nature of anti-social behaviour. They suggest that an approach involving a range of partners including the police, local authority, housing associations, landlords, businesses, the National Health Service and the voluntary sector, is needed to develop and implement effective responses.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116316/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Becky Thompson has received funding for this research from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) (project reference: ES/P001556/1). The research upon which this article is based was funded by the ESRC (project reference: ES/P001556/1). Previous, related research was also funded by the College of Policing, Higher Education Funding Council for England and Home Office Police Knowledge Fund. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andromachi Tseloni has received funding for this research from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) (project reference: ES/P001556/1). The research upon which this article is based was funded by the ESRC (project reference: ES/P001556/1). Previous, related research was also funded by the Home Office, College of Policing and Higher Education Funding Council for England Police Knowledge Fund. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Hunter has received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Innovate UK, the Home Office, College of Policing, and Higher Education Funding Council for England. Research upon which this article is based was funded by the ESRC (project reference: ES/P001556/1).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nick Tilley received funding for this research from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Puneet Tiwari received funding for this research from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). </span></em></p>New analysis reveals the most common types of anti-social behaviour, and who the victims are.Becky Thompson, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, Nottingham Trent UniversityAndromachi Tseloni, Professor of Quantitative Criminology, Nottingham Trent UniversityJames Hunter, Principal Lecturer in Public Policy, Nottingham Trent UniversityNick Tilley, Principal Research Associate, Department of Security and Crime Science, UCLPuneet Tiwari, Lecturer in the School of Social Sciences, Nottingham Trent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1058462018-11-05T03:58:47Z2018-11-05T03:58:47ZFactCheck: does Victoria have Australia’s highest rate of crime?<blockquote>
<p>But sadly, under Daniel Andrews Victoria has won the unenviable title as the state with the country’s highest rate of crime.</p>
<p><strong>– Leader of the Victorian Liberal Party Matthew Guy, <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/state-politics/victorian-liberals-launch-tilt-at-state-leadership/news-story/65922b5514e5fbf3a8f5042c2ae37dda">speaking</a> at the party’s election campaign launch, 28 October, 2018</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Victorian Liberal Party has promised to take a tough stance on crime if elected on November 24, with proposals including mandatory minimum sentencing for repeat offenders of serious crimes (including murder, rape, aggravated home invasions, aggravated burglaries and car-jackings) and an overhaul of the bail system. </p>
<p>At the party’s election campaign launch, Victorian Opposition leader Matthew Guy said Labor had presided over a “law and order crisis”, adding that under Premier Daniel Andrews, “Victoria has won the unenviable title as the state with the country’s highest rate of crime”.</p>
<p>Is that right?</p>
<h2>Response from Matthew Guy’s office</h2>
<p>The Conversation asked a spokesperson for Matthew Guy for sources and comment to support his statement, but did not receive a response before deadline.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, it is possible to check the statement against publicly available data.</p>
<hr>
<h2>Verdict</h2>
<p>Leader of the Victorian Liberal Party Matthew Guy said that “under Daniel Andrews, Victoria has won the unenviable title as the state with the country’s highest rate of crime”. The assertion is incorrect.</p>
<p>The Andrews government was elected in November 2014. According to Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Crime Victimisation Survey data, between July 2014 and June 2017 (the latest figures), Victoria did not top the nation in terms of crime rates for any but one of the 11 measured categories of personal and property crime.</p>
<p>Looking at the Crime Victimisation Survey results for three years up to and including 2016-17, Victoria showed the highest rate of sexual assault in two of those years. However, the ABS said the sexual assault data must be used with caution due to the small sample size. </p>
<p>For the other ten crime categories, the Victorian crime rate was lower than at least one other state or territory in each of the three years considered. </p>
<p>ABS Recorded Crime data show that between 2014 and 2017, Victoria did not have the highest rate of murder in the nation, nor did it have the highest rate of criminal offenders proceeded against by police at any time between November 2014 and June 2017.</p>
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<h2>Comparing crime rates between states and territories</h2>
<p>Making comparisons between recorded crime rates in different states and territories is fraught with difficulty, due to the differences in police practices and counting methods across the nation. </p>
<p>The most reliable data set for this task is the <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4530.0Main+Features12016-17?OpenDocument">Australia Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Crime Victimisation Survey</a>. Published <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/second+level+view?ReadForm&prodno=4530.0&viewtitle=Crime%20Victimisation,%20Australia%7E2016-17%7ELatest%7E16/02/2018&&tabname=Past%20Future%20Issues&prodno=4530.0&issue=2016-17&num=&view=&">annually since 2008-09</a>, the national survey collects data on people’s experience of violence and household crime. </p>
<p>The survey records both reported and unreported crimes. Given that not all crimes are reported to police, this provides us with a bigger picture.</p>
<p>The questions asked in the ABS Crime Victimisation Survey are the same for all states and territories. The victimisation rates represent the prevalence of selected crimes in Australia, expressed as a percentage of the total relevant population.</p>
<h2>Personal crime statistics</h2>
<p>This part of the survey records experiences of crime across: physical assault, face-to-face threatened physical assault, non-face-to-face threatened physical assault, sexual assault and robbery. </p>
<p>The Andrews government was sworn in on December 4, 2014, and the latest ABS Crime Victimisation Survey data are for 2016-17.</p>
<p>In the years <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/allprimarymainfeatures/D86E52390995CC89CA2580BA0018B424?opendocument">2014-15</a>, <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/allprimarymainfeatures/D6A3384BCF91637DCA258235000CBF8E?opendocument">2015-16</a> and <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/4530.0">2016-17</a>, Victoria did not have the highest rate in the nation for physical assault, face-to-face threatened physical assault, non-face-to-face threatened physical assault, or robbery. </p>
<p>Victoria did have the highest reported rate for sexual assault in 2015-16, and equal highest in 2014-15. However, the ABS warned that the data for Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, and Western Australia should be treated with caution due to the small sample size, and a relative standard error of 25% to 50%.</p>
<p>In addition, the data for Tasmania, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory had a relative standard error <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/4530.02016-17">greater than 50%</a>, and was considered too unreliable for general use.</p>
<p>The most recent Crime Victimisation Survey data are presented below. </p>
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<h2>Property crimes statistics</h2>
<p>The property crime element of the ABS survey covers home break-ins, attempted home break-ins, motor vehicle thefts, thefts from motor vehicles, malicious damage to property and other theft.</p>
<p>At no time in the years <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4530.0Main+Features100062014-15?OpenDocument">2014-15</a>, <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/allprimarymainfeatures/D6A3384BCF91637DCA258235000CBF8E?opendocument">2015-16</a> or <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/4530.0">2016-17</a> did Victoria have the nation’s highest rate of victimisation on any of these measures.</p>
<p>The chart below shows the latest available data:</p>
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<h2>Murder and homicide</h2>
<p>We can look to a different ABS data set – <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/second+level+view?ReadForm&prodno=4510.0&viewtitle=Recorded%20Crime%20-%20Victims,%20Australia%7E2017%7ELatest%7E28/06/2018&&tabname=Past%20Future%20Issues&prodno=4510.0&issue=2017&num=&view=&">ABS Recorded Crime - Victims</a> – to assess the murder rates across the states and territories for the calendar years from 2014 to 2017 (the latest year for which data are available). </p>
<p>However, there are missing data points in this record: no data were collected in the Northern Territory in 2016, Tasmania in 2010, 2011, 2013 and 2015, or the Australian Capital Territory in 2010, 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2016. </p>
<p>Even with the missing data points, we can see that Victoria did not have the highest recorded murder rate in any of the years from the election of the Andrews government to 2017. </p>
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<p>The terms homicide and murder are sometimes used interchangeably, but in fact they mean different things. Homicide is a broader term that includes some counts of manslaughter, murder-suicides, and <a href="http://www.crimestats.aic.gov.au/NHMP/homicide/">other incidents</a>.</p>
<p>The Australian Institute of Criminology publishes data from its National Homicide Monitoring Program. The <a href="http://www.crimestats.aic.gov.au/NHMP/">latest report</a>, published in 2017, shows information between <a href="https://aic.gov.au/publications/sr/sr002">July 2012 and June 2014</a>, before the Andrews government was elected.</p>
<p>But as you can see from the chart below, the Northern Territory had a higher homicide incident rate than Victoria (and all other states and the Australian Capital Territory) every year between 1999-2000 and 2013-14. You can explore an interactive version of the chart <a href="http://www.crimestats.aic.gov.au/NHMP/1_trends/">here</a>.</p>
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<h2>The issues with recorded crime data</h2>
<p>The ABS publishes “Recorded Crime” data on the number and rate of crime victims (with the <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4510.0Main+Features12017?OpenDocument">latest data</a> reporting on the 2017 calendar year), and offenders formally proceeded against by police (with the <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4519.0Main+Features12016-17?OpenDocument">latest data</a> reporting on the 2016-17 financial year).</p>
<p>These data sets aren’t ideal for comparing crime rates between states and territories, for a few reasons. </p>
<p>The data come from state and territory police administrative computer systems. Each state has subtly different recording methods and police practices, and this affects the comparability of data. </p>
<p>In addition, people’s willingness to report crime to police can differ across the states and territories. As such, the crime victims data are less reliable for measuring crime rates than the Crime Victimisation Survey.</p>
<p>The ABS introduced rules to guide the recording and counting of criminal incidents for statistical purposes, to enable consistency across the states and territories. But there remains some <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4510.0Explanatory%20Notes12017?OpenDocument">variability in the interpretation of the rules</a>. </p>
<p>The offender data are considered to be a reliable indication of <em>legal actions</em>. But they’re not a direct indicator of crime rates, due to the issues outlined above. Different jurisdictions also have different crime “clear up rates” (the percentage of a category of crimes that are solved).</p>
<p>The number of people arrested and proceeded against, and the types of crimes they are arrested for, can have as much to do with changes in legislation, police policy and practices in different jurisdictions as the number of criminal incidents committed. </p>
<p>It’s very important to keep those caveats in mind when looking at the data in the following chart.</p>
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<h2>What’s the picture for Victoria?</h2>
<p>The data in the chart below is published by the Victorian Crime Statistics Agency, and relates to crime in Victoria only. </p>
<p>The offences shown were chosen as their recorded incidence is generally considered to reflect their prevalence in the community, and the recorded rates are not overly impacted by law enforcement initiatives. </p>
<p>The recorded rates of drug offences and justice offences, by comparison, can be heavily affected by discretionary police decisions.</p>
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<p><strong>– Don Weatherburn, with Jackie Fitzgerald, director, NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research</strong></p>
<hr>
<h2>Blind review</h2>
<p>This FactCheck is accurate and based on reliable data. The verdict is correct: Victoria does not have the highest rate of crime.</p>
<p>It it worth observing that the latest federal <a href="https://www.pc.gov.au/research/ongoing/report-on-government-services/2018/justice">Report on Government Services (2018)</a> does highlight a significant drop in perceptions of public safety in Victoria. Often the public’s perceptions do not match the reality.</p>
<p>It is also noteworthy that the <a href="https://www.crimestatistics.vic.gov.au/crime-statistics/latest-crime-data/recorded-criminal-incidents-2">number and rate of criminal incidents in Victoria</a> have been at higher levels in recent years compared to before the Andrews government came to power. <strong>– Terry Goldsworthy</strong></p>
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<span class="caption">The Conversation FactCheck is accredited by the International Fact-Checking Network.</span>
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<p><em>The Conversation’s FactCheck unit was the first fact-checking team in Australia and one of the first worldwide to be accredited by the International Fact-Checking Network, an alliance of fact-checkers hosted at the Poynter Institute in the US. <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-conversations-factcheck-granted-accreditation-by-international-fact-checking-network-at-poynter-74363">Read more here</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>Have you seen a “fact” worth checking? The Conversation’s FactCheck asks academic experts to test claims and see how true they are. We then ask a second academic to review an anonymous copy of the article. You can request a check at <a href="mailto:checkit@theconversation.edu.au">checkit@theconversation.edu.au</a>. Please include the statement you would like us to check, the date it was made, and a link if possible.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105846/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Victorian Opposition leader Matthew Guy said under Premier Daniel Andrews, ‘Victoria has won the unenviable title as the state with the country’s highest rate of crime’. Is that right?Don Weatherburn, Director of the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research; Adjunct Professor, School of Social Science, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1031932018-10-30T11:51:09Z2018-10-30T11:51:09ZA policing paradox: as crime rises, detection rates of those responsible fall<p>Offences recorded by police forces in England and Wales have been <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/crimeinenglandandwales/yearendingjune2018">rising steeply since 2014</a>, according to figures published by the Office for National Statistics. However, the ONS doesn’t publish figures showing the related “detection rates” – the proportion of these offences for which police have also identified those responsible.</p>
<p>Yet, annual figures for police detections have been published by the Home Office for many years, and these show a fall in detection rates since 2014. In the 12 months to the end of March 2018, while the figure for recorded crime rose by more than a million compared to four years earlier, the number of offences where the police held to account those responsible fell by nearly 300,000.</p>
<p>To begin to unravel this seeming paradox – of offences going up but the number of them being detected by the police going down – requires an appreciation of the developments in the police recording of crime in recent years and the context in which these took place.</p>
<p>Soon after becoming home secretary in the coalition government of 2010, Theresa May announced that she was <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/police-reform-theresa-mays-speech-to-the-national-policing-conference">abolishing policing targets</a>. The only “mission” of the police, she insisted, was to reduce crime.</p>
<p>Yet the first policing targets set by the Labour government in 1997 also aimed to reduce crime. Although forces were slow to meet these expectations, crime had been reducing since 2003. The police had also begun to meet <a href="http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20040722015623/http://www.policereform.gov.uk/natpoliceplan/annex_a_npp_plan.html">a further target</a> Labour set them in 2004 to increase detection rates. </p>
<p>Labour’s new 2004 target applied only to detections where the police had formally held the suspects to account. This meant either charging the suspect to be tried in court or applying one of three out-of-court sanctions: a caution or reprimand, an on-the-street sanction in the form of either a penalty notice for disorder, or a cannabis warning.</p>
<p>For the first three years, police forces met Labour’s commitment to increase the number of crimes for which an offender was brought to justice almost exclusively by using the three out-of-court sanctions, rather than by charging suspects. Since these sanctions are available only for offences that don’t necessarily have to be tried in court, initially the offenders brought to justice were mainly responsible for less serious offences. </p>
<p>As the graphs below show, the number of offences resulting in a charge simply fell in line with recorded crime for three years after the detections target was introduced – but in 2008-9 it showed a sudden surge. So by the time Labour left office in 2010, 16% to 17% of recorded crimes resulted in a charge, compared to 13% prior to 2004.</p>
<h2>A sudden increase</h2>
<p>Once May abolished policing targets in 2010, it seemed in principle that detection rates might fall, because the pressure on the police had eased. But for four further years, the number of crimes recorded by the police continued to fall and the proportion of offences resulting in a charge simply went back to following the same trend. </p>
<p>The picture changed dramatically from 2014, following the <a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmpubadm/760/760.pdf">report of an inquiry</a> by MPs on the Public Administration Select Committee (PASC). It very publicly laid bare the range of strategies forces had employed to avoid including as many crime reports as necessary to ensure that the figures they submitted to the Home Office supported the claims made by a succession of home secretaries, including May, for more than a decade that the public had become safer, since with every passing year crime continued to fall.</p>
<p>Following the publication of the PASC report in 2014, the ONS immediately withdrew its official approval from the police recorded crime figures, though it continued to <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/crimeinenglandandwales/2015-01-22">publish them</a>. These figures continued to get steeper by the year and by March 2018, the overall number of crimes recorded in the previous 12 months had risen for the <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/datasets/crimeinenglandandwalesappendixtables">fourth year in a row</a>.</p>
<p>But here’s the paradox: as soon as recorded crime started to rise, the number of offences resulting in a charge or summons actually fell, and has continued to fall with each successive year. Between 2013-14 and 2017-18 it fell by 18%, from 602,390 to 495,655, despite a <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/crimeinenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2018#latest-figures">rise of 37% in crimes recorded</a> by the police over the same period. This seems largely to have gone unnoticed until it was <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0b3q1rm/panorama-police-under-pressure">highlighted in a BBC Panorama programme</a> in 2018.</p>
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<h2>No suspect identified</h2>
<p>One possible reason for this oversight is that since 2014, crime detection rates have no longer been published. Instead, they’ve been replaced by figures in a new series of Home Office reports entitled <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/crime-outcomes-in-england-and-wales-statistics">Outcomes of Crime England and Wales</a>. From April 2013, all 43 local police forces and the British Transport Police have been required to record the final status (or “outcome”) they assigned to every offence they record, including those which had not resulted in a detection of any sort.</p>
<p>All forces have now been providing complete outcomes figures to the Home Office since the 2015-16 financial year, with each recorded crime assigned one of 20 outcome codes. The outcome category that has covered by far the largest number of recorded offences in each year is “Investigation Complete – No Suspect Identified”. The reports have consistently shown that 48% of all recorded crimes are finalised on this basis – and yet the term is extraordinarily ambiguous. </p>
<p>It may refer to crimes subject to intensive investigation, which have nonetheless failed conclusively to identify any suspects. But it may equally refer to large numbers of offences reported to the police, which as an investigation by <a href="http://www.channel4.com/info/press/news/lawless-britain-where-are-the-police-channel-4-dispatches">Channel’s 4 Dispatches programme</a> revealed in October 2018, are increasingly being “screened out” by the police. This practice means that the reports are simply recorded as crimes but they receive no active attention from the police. The extent of screening out varies between forces but the process is commonly applied to those offences the public are most likely to report to the police, such as theft of and from cars.</p>
<h2>Crime unsolved</h2>
<p>Meanwhile, an appendix table in the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/crime-outcomes-in-england-and-wales-statistics">Home Office outcome reports</a> still makes it possible to track the overall trend in detections resulting in both charges and the other “sanctions”, which previously counted towards the Labour-era targets. As the graph below shows, the “sanction detection” rate had halved in four years, falling from 26% in the year to the end of March 2014 to 13% by the same time in 2018. </p>
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<p>After four years of rising crime, 288,000 fewer offences had resulted in those responsible being identified by the police and subject to some type of formal sanction. Although charges have always accounted for the largest single type of sanction detection, they accounted for little more than a third of the total fall. It was out-of-court sanctions that accounted for 181,000 – or two thirds – of the shortfall, a point that has been hitherto overlooked. </p>
<p>This means that, while concerns about the fall in charges are belatedly being recognised following the Panorama programme, maintaining a focus on these alone serves to mask a very much larger problem of the overall fall in police detection rates. </p>
<p>Taken together with the findings of the Dispatches programme, this points to the conclusion that the increasing failure of the police to detect the crimes they record disproportionately affects those offences which – in law – are treated as the least serious. Yet these include the offences the public is most likely to experience and to report to the police.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103193/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marian FitzGerald does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The police held to account those responsible for nearly 300,000 fewer offences between 2014 and 2018.Marian FitzGerald, Visiting Professor of Criminology, Kent Crime and Justice Centre, University of KentLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1031162018-09-12T15:26:23Z2018-09-12T15:26:23ZSouth Africa won’t become less violent until it’s more equal<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236031/original/file-20180912-133904-1sl8biq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South African police on patrol in Hout Bay, Cape Town, following requests for more intervention by locals.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Nic Bothma</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The release of crime statistics in South Africa always triggers great angst among ordinary citizens, and obfuscation on the part of the South African authorities. This year was no exception. </p>
<p>In their latest release of <a href="https://www.saps.gov.za/services/crimestats.php">crime statistics</a>, the South African Police Service seem to have tried to downplay crime rate increases (and exaggerate crime rate decreases), by using the <a href="https://africacheck.org/2018/09/12/analysis-crime-rates-worse-than-south-african-police-calculated/">wrong population estimates</a>. The police <a href="https://africacheck.org/2018/09/12/analysis-crime-rates-worse-than-south-african-police-calculated/">incorrectly</a> used the June 2018 population estimates in their analysis of the 2017/18 crime rates. This is not the first time they have made this kind of <a href="https://oldsite.issafrica.org/uploads/ISS-Statement-20Sept-2013.pdf">bungle</a>. </p>
<p>But their motivation is clear. Applying the correct population estimates suggests that the country saw the biggest per capita annual murder rate increase since 1994. Last year’s figures suggested that the murder rate had <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-african-crime-stats-show-police-struggling-to-close-cases-86429">stabilised</a>. But these were unfounded, as the murder rate has now risen to 36 per 100,000. The last time it was this high was in 2009. The increase is cause for serious concern.</p>
<p>Even the new minister of police Bheki Cele <a href="https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/2007430/57-south-africans-murdered-a-day-crime-statistics/">expressed shock</a> at the numbers, describing South Africa as being close to a “war zone”. He admitted that the country’s police force “dropped the ball”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236017/original/file-20180912-133898-qt13kc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236017/original/file-20180912-133898-qt13kc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236017/original/file-20180912-133898-qt13kc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236017/original/file-20180912-133898-qt13kc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236017/original/file-20180912-133898-qt13kc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236017/original/file-20180912-133898-qt13kc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236017/original/file-20180912-133898-qt13kc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">South Africa’s annual murder rate per 100,000.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author supplied</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A logical response might be that there is a need for more policing. <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/2018-09-11-dire-crime-statistics-are-nothing-to-write-home-about-bheki-cele-says/">According</a> to Cele:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We have lost the UN norm of policing which says one policeman to 220 citizens. One police officer is now looking at almost double that.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But this isn’t the answer. A sensible response to South Africa’s rising crime rates would be twofold: a problem-solving approach that would require a close analysis of what’s causing crime to rise in a given area. Then they’d need to devise a plan that takes into account all the contributory factors – and involves everyone affected in addressing it.</p>
<p>And, secondly, the country’s leaders must address inequality. South Africa is a highly unequal society. It has one of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-needs-a-fresh-approach-to-its-stubbornly-high-levels-of-inequality-87215">highest gini-co-efficients</a> (a measure of inequality) in the world. Research shows that inequality and crime go <a href="http://siteresources.worldbank.org/DEC/Resources/Crime%26Inequality.pdf">hand in hand</a>.</p>
<h2>The question of police numbers</h2>
<p>Police leaders <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-09-11-crime-stats-from-hell-brought-to-you-by-years-of-instability-political-pliancy-and-the-sapss-internecine-battles/">reported</a> that their staff numbers have gone down by 10,000 since 2010. They argued that they had 62,000 fewer police than were needed. </p>
<p>Police agencies all over the world often claim that, to reduce crime, they need bigger budgets and more officers. But the evidence that these two things automatically lead to more effective crime prevention is far from clear. </p>
<p>Take the issue of police numbers. Short-term and extreme spikes in police numbers (such as in response to <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.1086/426877">terrorist</a> threats) do seem to reduce crime. But <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0032258X15612702">a review of a number of studies</a> on the relationship between policing levels and crime rates suggested that the impact of more police is generally small. The paper also noted that part of the problem was that there have been few rigorous <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1745-9125.2011.00240.x">experiments</a> on, for example, extra police resources being allocated randomly.</p>
<p>Bigger budgets also have mixed outcomes. This is because, very often, a significant proportion of spending on police is ineffectual. Police resources often aren’t targeted, even though there’s evidence that <a href="https://theconversation.com/police-strategy-to-reduce-violent-crime-in-south-africa-could-work-heres-how-98497">doing so</a> produces <a href="http://www.campbellcollaboration.org/media/k2/attachments/Braga_Hot_Spots_Policing_Review.pdf">good results</a>. </p>
<p>This isn’t hard to do: crime is highly <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/580e/0a9a216444faf0db9592df45076fac297d50.pdf">concentrated</a> in hot spots that are often surprisingly small and quite <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1745-9125.2004.tb00521.x">stable</a> over time. With the right focus, resources could be directed to these areas. But mostly <a href="https://theconversation.com/police-strategy-to-reduce-violent-crime-in-south-africa-could-work-heres-how-98497">they aren’t</a>.</p>
<h2>Targeted approach</h2>
<p>What works best is a <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0002716203262548">problem-solving approach</a>. This involves focusing narrowly on understanding specific crime problems in specific places, and using not only police but drawing on the knowledge and resources of all parties, including other government departments and local communities. </p>
<p>For example, particular factors might be contributing to a spike in robberies in a particular area. These could include a large cohort of bored young people in the community, paths that are fertile ground for attacks because they are dark and overgrown, or unlit parks near a derelict building. </p>
<p>More police patrols wouldn’t necessarily be the best solution. The underlying problems would need to be addressed. This might include creating a partnership between property owners, the agencies in charge of parks and lighting administration, schools and parents, and the communities that use the spaces. </p>
<p>One concern with a targeted approach is that crime is simply pushed elsewhere. But evidence suggests that the displacement effect is usually limited and that, in fact, nearby areas often enjoy a <a href="https://campbellcollaboration.org/library/geographically-focused-policing.html">diffusion of benefits</a>. </p>
<h2>Inequality</h2>
<p>There’s a more fundamental problem that needs to be solved on a national scale before South Africa’s crime levels can be reduced: inequality. </p>
<p>Research shows that inequality is arguably the single best <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15817728">predictor</a> of whether a country will experience high or low levels of crime and violence. Inequality</p>
<ul>
<li><p>makes property crime more attractive and profitable;</p></li>
<li><p>drives frustration, hostility and hopelessness; and,</p></li>
<li><p>undermines trust, community engagement and the functioning of social and institutional structures. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>South Africa is one of the most unequal countries in the <a href="http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/530481521735906534/Overcoming-Poverty-and-Inequality-in-South-Africa-An-Assessment-of-Drivers-Constraints-and-Opportunities">world</a>. </p>
<h2>Where to from here</h2>
<p>Murder levels nationally have been at about this level or higher (above 30 per 100,000, which is considered <a href="https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/statistics/GSH2013/2014_GLOBAL_HOMICIDE_BOOK_web.pdf#page=24">very high</a> by global standards) since at least the <a href="https://theconversation.com/facts-show-south-africa-has-not-become-more-violent-since-democracy-62444">1970s</a>. High levels of violence are not a matter of police resources. They are a structural feature of this society. </p>
<p>This is not to say that the police are blameless. Among <a href="https://theconversation.com/police-strategy-to-reduce-violent-crime-in-south-africa-could-work-heres-how-98497">other things</a> they should be doing more to <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-african-crime-stats-show-police-struggling-to-close-cases-86429">solve cases</a>. But addressing the key drivers of crime and violence requires that South Africa builds a much larger social partnership. It has no hope of becoming a fundamentally less violent country until it becomes a more equal one.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103116/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anine Kriegler previously received funding from the National Research Foundation and the David and Elaine Potter Foundation.</span></em></p>Increasing police patrols won’t solve South Africa’s high rates of violent crime. Underlying problems need to be addressed.Anine Kriegler, Researcher and Doctoral Candidate in Criminology, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1003472018-07-23T16:08:44Z2018-07-23T16:08:44ZCoercive control cases have doubled – but police still miss patterns of this domestic abuse<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228835/original/file-20180723-189329-1wt3csj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Evidence of long term coercive control can be hard for the police to collect. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/599864123?src=6BD15wXtbxUEDyu5jznKMA-1-11&size=medium_jpg">from www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Double the number of cases of controlling or coercive behaviour in intimate relationships were recorded in the UK in 2017-18 than in the previous year. The offence became a <a href="https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/controlling-or-coercive-behaviour-intimate-or-family-relationship">crime</a> in England and Wales in December 2015, but its early implementation <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-question/Commons/2017-11-13/112586/">was shaky</a>, with very few crimes of coercive control recorded and even fewer successfully prosecuted.</p>
<p>Now new <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/crimeinenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2018">figures</a> released by the Office for National Statistics revealed 9,052 offences of coercive control were recorded, up from 4,246 in 2016-17. The new ONS figures could suggest that police officers’ understanding and identification of this offence has improved. However, our <a href="http://n8prp.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Police-responses-to-coercive-control.pdf">research</a> highlights ongoing issues with police responses to coercive control that go beyond problems associated with identifying and recording the offence. </p>
<h2>Patterns missed</h2>
<p>When we looked at a random sample of 116 other domestic abuse-related crimes, we found that 87% of these could also have been recorded by the police as as part of the web of abuse that could constitute coercive control. This meant there was evidence of repeat victimisation, a pattern of abusive behaviour and of victim witness statements. These figures suggest there are still considerable opportunities being missed to identify repeated patterns of abusive behaviour that could be prosecuted under the coercive control offence. </p>
<p>This is just the tip of the iceberg of problems in the police response to this form of domestic abuse. A recent <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/726985/crime-outcomes-hosb1018.pdf">Home Office report</a> suggested that nobody is charged in nine out of ten crimes. So even though there have been improvements to police crime recording practices, responding, investigating and solving cases effectively remains a pertinent issue. </p>
<p>Our research identified that just 16% of coercive control cases (over an 18-month period) resulted in a charge, which is particularly low when compared with other domestic abuse-related offences. For example, we found that 32% of domestic actual bodily harm cases were charged. </p>
<p>We’ve also highlighted further issues with the investigative process. In particular, securing evidence of coercive control was a problem for police officers, with many cases resulting in no further action due to “evidential difficulties”. This is reflective of a broader pattern in domestic abuse cases: new <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/726985/crime-outcomes-hosb1018.pdf">Home Office data</a> on crime outcomes shows that 69% of unsolved domestic abuse-related offences had “evidential difficulties”. This is almost three times the proportion of offences that were not domestic related. </p>
<p><iframe id="ZIhNq" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/ZIhNq/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>The Home Office figures also show that the issue of victims declining to prosecute or retracting their statement continues to be a significant issue in all types of domestic abuse, as expected. This can be a common response for victims of domestic and other forms of abuse because of the fear of not being believed or of what the perpetrator may do as a consequence. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-its-so-hard-to-prosecute-cases-of-coercive-or-controlling-behaviour-66108">Why it's so hard to prosecute cases of coercive or controlling behaviour</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>However, in our research, retraction of this sort was slightly less common in coercive control cases compared to other domestic abuse-related crimes. This suggests that collecting evidence of the offence is the more problematic issue for police officers.</p>
<p>The prevalence of evidence issues may well be a reflection of the difficulties faced by officers in demonstrating experiences of sustained patterns of coercive control within the statements made by victims. Our research found persistent examples of officers investigating “incidents”, such as assault, as isolated events rather than possibly illustrative of a web of abusive behaviour, as outlined in the coercive control legislation. </p>
<h2>Train the police</h2>
<p>The coercive control offence has been subject to <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1748895817743541">critique</a> – both <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1748895817728561">conceptually</a> and in terms of <a href="http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/home-affairs-committee/domestic-abuse/written/86389.pdf">its implications</a> for how such victimisation is recorded and understood more broadly in the UK. </p>
<p>An increase in the number of coercive control crimes does not necessarily equate to better police understanding and response to this more recent offence. Officers require further opportunities to learn about the harms and risk of coercive control, and how to effectively respond and investigate this offence. </p>
<p>Ongoing austerity measures, persistent <a href="https://theconversation.com/fact-check-have-the-conservatives-protected-police-and-counter-terrorism-budgets-78782">budget cuts</a> to policing and a consequent lack of resources carry significant implications for victims of domestic abuse and the capacity for police to respond effectively. Recent reports also suggest that the police are <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/07/16/police-failing-record-thousands-crimes-including-violence-domestic/">failing to record</a> thousands of domestic abuse crimes. Although the potential reasons for this are unclear, there is still more work to be done in identifying and recording such abusive behaviour. </p>
<p>Local and national level investment is required in areas such as police training and resourcing to ensure that victims are supported and safe, and that police officers are equipped to deliver a more effective response.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100347/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Charlotte Barlow was PI for the N8 funded project.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>My PhD was funded by the ESRC, and I received a small research grant from the N8 Policing Research Partnership last year.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sandra Walklate was the co-investigator on the project referred to in this article which was funded by the N8PRP Catalyst Fund.</span></em></p>It’s still rare for cases of coercive control to reach prosecution.Charlotte Barlow, Lecturer in Criminology, Lancaster UniversityKelly Johnson, Assistant Professor, Durham UniversitySandra Walklate, Eleanor Rathbone Chair of Sociology, University of LiverpoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/864292017-10-31T09:27:25Z2017-10-31T09:27:25ZSouth African crime stats show police struggling to close cases<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192606/original/file-20171031-18704-6hs01g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africa's Police Minister Fikile Mbalula's biggest challenge is to ensure that criminals are brought to book.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Mike Hutchings</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa’s <a href="https://businesstech.co.za/news/government/161715/south-africas-latest-crime-stats-everything-you-need-to-know/">latest crime statistics</a> released by the country’s police service reflect a continued long-term decline in levels of non-violent property crime, a possible stabilisation following four years of increase in murder, and a sustained rise in violent property crime. </p>
<p>More worryingly, a closer look at case outcomes points to the toll that the leadership <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2017-10-24-anarchy-in-crime-intelligence-services-says-mbalula/">crisis</a> in crime intelligence and the <a href="https://www.groundup.org.za/article/money-police-forensic-services-diverted-home-affairs/">struggling</a> detective service are beginning to take on investigative capacity. </p>
<p>Each of the last four national police commissioners has been removed on suspicion of corruption or being otherwise unfit for office. These and other senior criminal justice system appointments are now widely <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/2017-06-05-zumas-free-hand-a-disaster-for-policing/">seen</a> as sites of factional disputes within the ruling African National Congress (ANC), or as attempts by the powerful to avoid facing criminal responsibility for their actions. </p>
<p>Some commentators, such as the Institute for Security Studies and Corruption Watch, are increasingly <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-07-18-iss-today-its-time-for-the-right-top-cops-in-south-africa/#.WfbLstDXaUk">concerned</a> that the series of poor appointments and lack of leadership stability are having a direct impact on crime levels. </p>
<p>I believe that changing socioeconomic conditions are likelier culprits. There is undoubtedly a <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/073401689301800203">relationship</a> between economic deprivation and crime, although the exact nature of the relationship is a matter of endless debate. It would be surprising if South Africa’s <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/business-report/statssa-say-poverty-in-sa-increased-10893757">increase</a> in poverty since 2011 were not putting upward pressure on violent crime. </p>
<p>Whether or not police leadership can have a real impact on crime levels, they do affect the services delivered to victims.</p>
<h2>Justice increasingly delayed</h2>
<p>In the last five years, the number of cases of aggravated robbery recorded by the police rose by almost 40%. Meanwhile the number of convictions for aggravated robbery rose by just 5%. </p>
<p>The number of cases in which investigation has not been finalised is also showing worrying trends. “Incomplete” murder and residential burglary complaints are at 10 year highs. Despite the declining total volume of crime reported to the police, the investigative backlog is growing.</p>
<p>This is a sign of justice increasingly delayed and possibly denied.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192610/original/file-20171031-18686-1rke47y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192610/original/file-20171031-18686-1rke47y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192610/original/file-20171031-18686-1rke47y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192610/original/file-20171031-18686-1rke47y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192610/original/file-20171031-18686-1rke47y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192610/original/file-20171031-18686-1rke47y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192610/original/file-20171031-18686-1rke47y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192610/original/file-20171031-18686-1rke47y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Growing backlog.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author supplied</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s also a sign of an organisation struggling to meet demand for its services. </p>
<p>The new police minister, Fikile Mbalula, must work to rapidly improve investigative performance. To the extent that the police can be expected to prevent crime, their chief strategy should be solving cases. If they can’t do that, they have little hope of stemming the robbery tide.</p>
<h2>Limits to the data</h2>
<p>The South African Police Service crime statistics are a rich source of knowledge about the crime situation in the country. But they need to be handled with care. This means remembering at least three things.</p>
<p>First, not all crimes are reported to the police, or recorded by them. This means that the official figures are an under-count. The extent of this varies by crime type. For example, we know from surveys that sexual offences are rarely reported, while vehicle thefts are almost invariably reported. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192611/original/file-20171031-18711-10gvh8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192611/original/file-20171031-18711-10gvh8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192611/original/file-20171031-18711-10gvh8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192611/original/file-20171031-18711-10gvh8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192611/original/file-20171031-18711-10gvh8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192611/original/file-20171031-18711-10gvh8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192611/original/file-20171031-18711-10gvh8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192611/original/file-20171031-18711-10gvh8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bad news.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author supplied</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Second, some victims and communities are more likely to report to police, and they’re more likely to be taken seriously by the police. For example, recent survey data shows that white South Africans are far more <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0341/P03412016.pdf#page=45">likely</a> to report a theft to the police and to be <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0341/P03412016.pdf#page=29">satisfied</a> by the police response to their burglary than other population groups. They are also more likely to be insured, which is a key <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0341/P03412016.pdf#page=25">determinant</a> of reporting of crimes like vehicle theft. </p>
<p>This means that a theft in a largely white, relatively prosperous area is considerably more likely to make it into the official police stats than a theft in an area dominated by other population groups, where satisfaction with police performance is lower, and where few have the incentive of claiming from insurance. </p>
<p>Third, crime statistics always need to be read in the context of other available data. Statistics South Africa’s annual <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/?p=10521">Victims of Crime Survey</a> is an essential companion document to the crime statistics, providing some of the necessary context on just how partial and distorted the official figures are.</p>
<h2>The stats in brief</h2>
<p>Declines have continued in most non-violent property crimes like burglary and vehicle theft. These trends are supported by data from the Victims of Crime Survey. They are noteworthy, given that non-violent property crimes still constitute the bulk of crime in the country. </p>
<p>On the other hand, the violent property crime situation continues to show serious deterioration. Aggravated robberies have risen by almost 30% in the last five years. Rates of carjacking have increased by about 13% in the last year alone. They are at risk of reclaiming the heights last seen in the late 1990s. House robbery rates have doubled since 2003. </p>
<p>So, although the average person in South Africa is increasingly unlikely to lose their property to crime, the crime they experience is increasingly likely to involve physical, sometimes violent interaction with criminals. </p>
<p>Although murder figures increased by about 1.8% in the last year, in the same time the national population increased by about 1.7%. The murder rate per capita thus saw no significant change. This possible stabilisation is an improvement on the marked increases of the previous four years, but falls short of the decline needed to return the country to a longer positive <a href="https://theconversation.com/facts-show-south-africa-has-not-become-more-violent-since-democracy-62444">trajectory</a>. </p>
<p>This is sorely necessary, given that someone in the country is murdered about every 28 minutes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86429/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anine Kriegler receives funding from the National Research Foundation and the David and Elaine Potter Foundation.</span></em></p>Poor leadership in crime intelligence and a struggling detective service are affecting the ability of South Africa - where a murder happens every 28 minutes - to bring down crime.Anine Kriegler, Researcher and Doctoral Candidate in Criminology, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/815322017-07-27T12:34:28Z2017-07-27T12:34:28ZIs crime going up or down in England and Wales? What crime statistics actually tell us<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179824/original/file-20170726-7205-1m66e6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Should we be worried?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">via shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Crimes <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/crimeinenglandandwales/yearendingmar2017">recorded by the police</a> have jumped 10% overall in the 12 months to March 2017 – the largest annual rise in a decade, according to new data recently released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). </p>
<p>But in the same report, the ONS reported that the latest <a href="http://www.crimesurvey.co.uk/">Crime Survey for England and Wales</a> showed a 7% decrease in crime compared to the prior year.</p>
<p>How can both be true? Is there really a significant increase in crime in England and Wales, or has crime actually fallen?</p>
<p>The new ONS figures do show some alarming rises: violent crimes surged 18% in the 12 months to March 2017. The homicide rate jumped 26%, robberies were up by 16%, and sexual assaults by 15%. Offenders were more likely to use weapons, offences with knives or other sharp instruments climbed 20% in the year, and those involving firearms increased by 23%. Police recorded property crime rates also increased. Theft offences rose 7% over the year, while public order offences increased by a dramatic 39%.</p>
<p>Ministers should be concerned that the numbers suggest the country may be verging on a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jul/20/rising-spells-deep-trouble-for-theresa-may">violent crime wave</a>. Still, there is some evidence to the contrary, suggesting that crime should not be such a pressing concern.</p>
<h2>Conflicting evidence</h2>
<p>The two methods of studying crime statistics – a crime survey and police recorded crime – simply measure it in different ways. And they count different types of offences. </p>
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<p>Police recorded crimes only include offences that come to the attention of police officers and are entered as official statistics. In contrast, the Crime Survey numbers are generated after face-to-face questioning of as many as 35,000 households. </p>
<p>The Crime Survey results include crimes not reported to police that would not appear in the number of police recorded crimes. But the survey does not capture a lot of serious offences that are counted in police recorded crimes, such as homicide, weapons attacks, and sexual assault. Officials admit that the face-to-face method means people are sometimes not forthcoming when talking about private crimes such as sexual assault. The survey method also does not cover victimless crimes such as drug possession.</p>
<p>In addition, unlike the police reported statistics, the Crime Survey does not count crimes occurring in communal settings, such as college dorms, assisted care facilities, or prisons.</p>
<p>John Flatley, a statistician with the ONS acknowledges the seeming discrepancy. In the recent report, he attributes the rise in reported crime to “ongoing improvements to recording practices”. But he also concedes that there were actual increases in crimes in certain categories. </p>
<p>So, which is the better method for judging changes in crime rates over time? For most low-level property crimes, which are often not reported to police, the <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/methodologies/crimeandjusticemethodology/userguidetocrimestatisticsforenglandandwales.pdf">Crime Survey</a> is the better option. But for violent and serious crimes, the Crime Survey does not cover many of them and <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40665733">police recorded crime</a> data is more effective. </p>
<p>This means that for those most concerned about the resurgence of violent crime, the recent substantial increases in violent offending recorded by the police is alarming.</p>
<h2>Police numbers</h2>
<p>Opposition politicians have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jul/20/official-figures-show-biggest-rise-crime-in-a-decade">pointed</a> out that while reported crime was rising, substantial cuts were made to policing resources nationwide. In the Conservatives’ bid to reduce spending, the number of police officers in England and Wales has declined in recent years. Overall, police personnel are <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/630471/hosb1017-police-workforce.pdf">down 14% since 2010</a>. </p>
<p>Despite such criticism, there is no scientific evidence that can show these reductions actually <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/20/world/europe/england-wales-crime-rate.html">caused any increase in crime</a>. There are just too many other factors that might explain fluctuations in crime rates, such as unemployment, the availability of social services, and the level of drug use. </p>
<p>The substantial increases in crime from the ONS certainly achieve bigger headlines. Perhaps the more important observation is that the results are already providing political fodder to various sides in the debate about the state of crime and policing resources. Unfortunately, the divergence in statistics means politicians can simply pick the source or statistic that suits their interests.</p>
<p><em>This article was updated on July 28 to correct the figure for the number of households invited to take place in the Crime Survey for England and Wales. It is 35,000, not 500,000.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81532/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Melissa Hamilton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Some reports say crime is rising, but others that it is falling. Can they both be right?Melissa Hamilton, Senior Lecturer of Law & Criminology, University of SurreyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/726492017-02-13T07:18:52Z2017-02-13T07:18:52ZFactCheck Q&A: is violent crime getting worse in Victoria and do people feel less safe than ever?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156272/original/image-20170209-8649-1ohnrm6.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Energy and Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg speaking on Q&A.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">ABC</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><strong>The Conversation fact-checks claims made on Q&A, broadcast Mondays on the ABC at 9:35pm. Thank you to everyone who sent us quotes for checking via <a href="http://www.twitter.com/conversationEDU">Twitter</a> using hashtags #FactCheck and #QandA, on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/conversationEDU">Facebook</a> or by <a href="mailto:checkit@theconversation.edu.au">email</a>.</strong></p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Excerpt from Q&A, February 6, 2017. Watch from 1:46.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<blockquote>
<p>I don’t think Victorians have ever felt as unsafe as they do now. I think people are worried about home invasions, carjackings. The numbers tell the story. Burglaries are up 21% year on year in Victoria. Assaults are up 11%. Murders are up 9%. – <strong>Energy and Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4563427.htm">speaking on Q&A</a>, February 6, 2017.</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Following a question on ABC TV’s Q&A program, Josh Frydenberg – who holds the inner Melbourne seat of Kooyong – said he thought people in his home state feel more unsafe than ever and that burglaries, assaults and murders were up year-on-year in that state.</p>
<p>Is that right?</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"828576665177509889"}"></div></p>
<h2>Checking the source</h2>
<p>When asked for sources to support his statement, a spokesman for the minister referred The Conversation to the following table from Victoria’s <a href="https://www.crimestatistics.vic.gov.au/crime-statistics/latest-crime-data/recorded-offences-1">Crime Statistics Agency</a>, which processes, analyses and publishes the state’s crime statistics independently of Victoria Police. These figures cover crimes recorded by police:</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156319/original/image-20170210-8651-1fdzdwi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156319/original/image-20170210-8651-1fdzdwi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156319/original/image-20170210-8651-1fdzdwi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156319/original/image-20170210-8651-1fdzdwi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156319/original/image-20170210-8651-1fdzdwi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156319/original/image-20170210-8651-1fdzdwi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156319/original/image-20170210-8651-1fdzdwi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156319/original/image-20170210-8651-1fdzdwi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This table outlines the offence categories that had statistically significant movements from October 2014 to September 2016. All other offence categories remained stable during this period. It also covers only crimes recorded by police, not all crime.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.crimestatistics.vic.gov.au/crime-statistics/latest-crime-data/recorded-offences-1">Victoria's Crime Statistics Agency</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Frydenberg’s spokesman added:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It would appear that in trying to remember the stats he mixed up robberies (21.5%) with burglaries (13.7%).</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The minister’s office has provided a good source for his figures, and readily acknowledged some numbers were mixed up. </p>
<p>So what are the real numbers are on burglaries, assaults and murders? And was Frydenberg’s overall point – that crime is getting worse – correct? Is his view on how safe Victorians feel supported by the evidence?</p>
<h2>Two key sources for crime stats</h2>
<p>There are two main sources against which Frydenberg’s crime stats can be checked.</p>
<p>The first is the <a href="https://www.crimestatistics.vic.gov.au/crime-statistics/latest-crime-data/recorded-offences-1">Crime Statistics Agency in Victoria</a> (Frydenberg’s source). These figures reflect crimes recorded by police.</p>
<p>But evidence shows that <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/4530.02015-16?OpenDocument">not all Australians</a> who are victims of a crime report it to police, which means those figures are not showing the full picture. It depends on the crime; the reporting rate for break-ins is about 77%, and it’s about 93% for motor vehicle theft. But the reporting rate for robbery is about 52%, physical assault is at about 55% and it’s as low as 30% for sexual assault).</p>
<p>To get a better sense of true crime rates, a second, more reliable, measure of crime in the community is the <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4530.0Main+Features12015-16?OpenDocument">crime victimisation survey</a> conducted each year by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
Since 2008, these surveys ask a <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4530.0Explanatory%20Notes12015-16?OpenDocument">large sample</a> of the population whether they have experienced certain personal and household crimes in the last 12 months.</p>
<h2>What do the stats on crimes recorded by police show?</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.crimestatistics.vic.gov.au/crime-statistics/latest-crime-data/recorded-offences-1">Crime Statistics Agency data</a> that the minister’s office cited show that between September 2015 and September 2016:</p>
<ul>
<li>Burglary/break and enter offences were up 13.7% (not 21%, as Frydenberg said on Q&A; if he had said robberies, 21% would have been correct).</li>
<li>Assault and related offences were up 12.6% (slightly more than the 11% Frydenberg said on the show)</li>
<li><a href="https://www.crimestatistics.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/embridge_cache/emshare/original/public/2017/01/d0/0535f6a9f/Offences%20data%20table%20-%20year%20ending%2030%20September%202016.xlsx">The number of murders</a> went from 56 to 61, an increase of 8.9% (matching Frydenberg’s figure of 9%)</li>
<li>The overall offence rate increased by 9.4%.</li>
</ul>
<p>Over the past five years, the offence rate per 100,000 people in Victoria has has an average annual increase of 5.4%.</p>
<p>So even though Frydenberg got some figures wrong, his broader point – that crime is getting worse in Victoria – is well supported by this data set. And he did quote the Crime Statistics Agency’s figure for murder correctly on Q&A.</p>
<p>But it’s possible these figures reflect the fact that people are increasingly likely to report crimes to the police.</p>
<h2>What does the Crime Victimisation Survey show?</h2>
<p>But what’s a better way to get a sense of whether Victorians are more or less likely to be a victim of crime than before? That was the point Q&A viewer Paula Maud made in her <a href="https://twitter.com/paula_maud/status/828576665177509889">tweet</a> requesting a FactCheck – and it’s a good point. </p>
<p>That’s where looking at the ABS crime victimisation survey figure can help us get a more accurate picture.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by+Subject/1367.0%7E2012%7EMain+Features%7ECrime+Victimisation%7E5.21">crime victimisation rate</a> gives us an indication of the total number of victims of a crime in each state and territory, or Australia-wide, expressed as a percentage of that population. </p>
<p>For example, if Victoria had a robbery victimisation rate of 0.3% in 2015-16, it means that three Victorians aged 15 and above in every 1000 (<a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4530.0Explanatory%20Notes12015-16?OpenDocument">excluding</a> members of the defence forces and overseas residents in Australia) reported that they were victims of robbery in that 12 month period.</p>
<p>The charts below show how the victimisation rate has changed for various crime categories between 2008 and 2016.</p>
<p>The ABS’ <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4530.0Main+Features12015-16?OpenDocument">crime victimisation survey</a> calls burglaries “break-ins” (meaning unlawful entry of a dwelling with intent to steal something). It covers robberies (meaning a theft in combination with a threatened or actual assault) as well.</p>
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<p>The Crime Victimisation Survey doesn’t report on murder, but data from the <a href="http://www.aic.gov.au/about_aic/research_programs/nmp/0001.html">National Homicide Monitoring Program</a> shows that the murder rate in Victoria, as in Australia generally, has declined by about a third since 1990. And the latest ABS <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4510.0%7E2014%7EMain%20Features%7EHomicide%20and%20Related%20Offences%7E9">Victims of Homicide</a> data (which goes up to 2015) show the murder rate for Victoria has declined:</p>
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<h2>Is crime in Victoria rising in the longer term?</h2>
<p>Between 2008 and 2016, most crime rates in Victoria decreased, the crime victimisation surveys show. (Sexual assault and domestic violence rates have gone up, which may reflect changing social attitudes and definitions around these crimes).</p>
<p>This general fall in the level of crime started <a href="http://aic.gov.au/media_library/publications/facts/2014/facts_and_figures_2014.pd">in the early 2000s</a> and is apparent in all Australian states except Western Australia, the crime victimisation survey shows. It’s also apparent in the United States, the United Kingdom and most European countries. </p>
<p>There have been a variety of explanations proposed for the “<a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/publication/what-caused-crime-decline">great crime decline</a>”, none of them entirely satisfactory. But what is undeniable is that the level of crime in developed countries is now significantly lower than it was at the end of the 20th century.</p>
<h2>Have Victorians’ ever felt as unsafe as they do now?</h2>
<p>As <a href="https://theconversation.com/election-factcheck-is-crime-getting-worse-in-australia-60119">noted</a> in previous crime stats FactCheck:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Public perceptions of crime and justice are commonly out of kilter with the facts. <a href="http://www.bocsar.nsw.gov.au/Documents/CJB/cjb182.pdf">Surveys</a> conducted by the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research show that most people think crime is increasing when it is not.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>That said, the <a href="https://www.vichealth.vic.gov.au/programs-and-projects/vichealth-indicators-survey-2015">2015 VicHealth Indicators survey</a> showed that the proportion of Victorians who reported feeling safe when walking alone after dark was 55.1%. That was down from 2011 when 59.3% said they felt safe, but not significantly different to the level when the same question was asked in 2007. </p>
<p>The 2017 <a href="http://www.pc.gov.au/research/ongoing/report-on-government-services/2017/justice">Report on Government Services</a> on justice reported a steady fall in the proportion of Victorians who said they felt safe walking in their neighbourhood after dark. Interestingly, over the five-year period shown in the chart below, that change in feeling less safe walking down the street in Victoria wasn’t reported by people in most other states or territories.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156318/original/image-20170210-8634-1ume9ny.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156318/original/image-20170210-8634-1ume9ny.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156318/original/image-20170210-8634-1ume9ny.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156318/original/image-20170210-8634-1ume9ny.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156318/original/image-20170210-8634-1ume9ny.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156318/original/image-20170210-8634-1ume9ny.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156318/original/image-20170210-8634-1ume9ny.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156318/original/image-20170210-8634-1ume9ny.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Perceptions of safety in public places during the night.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.pc.gov.au/research/ongoing/report-on-government-services/2017/justice/rogs-2017-volumec.pdf">Report on Government Services, Volume C: Justice</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The <a href="http://ipsos.com.au/ipsos-public-affairs/the-issues-monitor/">IPSOS Issues Monitor survey</a> for December 2016 showed that crime was the most highly ranked issue for Victorians, with 41% selecting it as one of the three most important issues facing their state, up from 28% for most of 2014 and 2015. However, the current level of concern about crime in Victoria is about the same as it was in 2010.</p>
<p>Broadly speaking, it does appear that Victorians’ concerns about crime have increased in recent years.</p>
<h2>Verdict</h2>
<p>Josh Frydenberg accurately quoted one set of official statistics on murder on Q&A, and was close to the mark (actually slightly underquoting) the figures on assault and related offences. However, as his office readily acknowledged, he got it wrong on the increase in burglaries. </p>
<p>Is his broader point that crime is worsening in Victoria correct? According to figures based on police records, yes. But we also know that many crimes never get reported to police, which means we’re better off looking at another, more reliable data set – the ABS’ annual crime victimisation survey.</p>
<p>That survey shows that between 2015 and 2016, the victimisation rate for break-in and physical assault rose, and stayed the same for robbery. Over the longer term, (between 2008 and 2016) most crime rates in Victoria decreased and this general fall is apparent in all Australian states except Western Australia.</p>
<p>A number of different sources show that Victorians are feeling more concerned about crime and safety in recent years. We don’t have enough comparable data to say if Victorians have ever felt as unsafe as they do now. <strong>– Stuart Ross</strong></p>
<hr>
<h2>Review</h2>
<p>This analysis is thorough and the author has relied on a variety of data sets to reach evidence-based conclusions.</p>
<p>One issue worth noting is the difference between public perceptions of crime versus the reality of crime that is occurring. The media focus on crime is one culprit in shaping our perceptions of reality. It is also worthy to note that when politicians speak of crime issues relevant to the public, they are often referencing recent events rather than the long term trend. <strong>– Terry Goldsworthy</strong></p>
<p><em>CORRECTION: The title of the murder victimisation rate chart changed on February 18 to replace “Murder victimisation rate (%)” with “Murder victimisation rate (per 100,000)”. The Conversation apologises for the error and thanks reader Cameron Lewis for spotting it.</em></p>
<hr>
<p><div class="callout"> Have you ever seen a “fact” worth checking? The Conversation’s FactCheck asks academic experts to test claims and see how true they are. We then ask a second academic to review an anonymous copy of the article. You can request a check at checkit@theconversation.edu.au. Please include the statement you would like us to check, the date it was made, and a link if possible.</div></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72649/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stuart Ross has done consulting work for the Victorian Department of Justice in the past. He has previously received funding from the ARC.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Terry Goldsworthy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Energy and Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg said he thought that Victorians have never felt more unsafe, and that burglaries, assaults and murders are rising year-on-year. Is he right?Stuart Ross, Director and Senior Researcher, Melbourne Criminological Research and Evaluation, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/640602016-08-28T18:08:19Z2016-08-28T18:08:19ZWhat to look for in South Africa’s troubling crime statistics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135421/original/image-20160824-30259-12ivxlm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Crime is not at all evenly distributed in any country or city, so smaller scale data is essential.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since the 19th century, a growing number of countries have attempted to systematically <a href="http://law.jrank.org/pages/2163/Statistics-Reporting-Systems-Methods-History-crime-statistics.html">collect and analyse</a> information on all the crimes known to their police.</p>
<p><a href="https://data.unodc.org/">At least 139</a> have made some such data public at least once in the last decade, but there is major variation in quality and in the frequency and ease of public access.</p>
<p>For example, the United Kingdom releases audited figures for the previous 12 months <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/criminal-justice-statistics-quarterly">quarterly</a>, but more detailed <a href="https://data.police.uk/data/">monthly</a> data for each geographic police force are also made available. </p>
<p>Crime is not at all evenly distributed in any country or city, so smaller scale data is essential. The US releases a semiannual <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-releases-preliminary-semiannual-crime-statistics-for-2015">preliminary</a> report and an <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/latest-crime-stats-released">annual report</a>. Many <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2016/03/calls_for_service_data_are_the_best_way_to_analyze_crime_why_don_t_cities.html">US cities</a> publish quarterly, monthly, or even <a href="http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/html/crime_prevention/crime_statistics.shtml">weekly</a> crime statistics. </p>
<p>Developing countries face considerable challenges in their <a href="https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/Crime-statistics/International_Statistics_on_Crime_and_Justice.pdf#page=9">capacity</a> to produce crime (or <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-poor-data-affects-africas-ability-to-make-the-right-policy-decisions-64064">other</a>) statistics of reasonable completeness. </p>
<p>In Africa, crime or criminal justice statistics <a href="https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/statistics/crime/ICCS/12_E-CN15-2014-10_E.pdf#page=12">remain scarce</a>, fairly <a href="http://www.unodc.org/pdf/African_report.pdf#page=16">ad hoc</a>, and often of poor quality. And possible changes in the public’s reporting behaviour and the police’s recording behaviour can make it difficult to determine whether a change in the crime statistics is “real” or rather a <a href="http://journals.assaf.org.za/index.php/sacq/article/view/1084">“statistical illusion”</a>.</p>
<p>In <a href="http://afrobarometer.org/sites/default/files/publications/Dispatches/ab_r6_dispatchno56_police_corruption_in_africa.pdf#page=15">some countries</a>, less than one-third of the crime that people experience is ever reported to the police. Especially for crimes that are substantially under-reported (such as sexual crimes), an increase in the recorded rate may mean more people are reporting their experiences to the police rather than that more crimes are happening.</p>
<p>South Africa faces similar challenges. The South African Police Service (SAPS) publishes national, provincial and station crime statistics and has done so for several years. Experts and activists have called for more regular and detailed crime statistics. Many lauded the <a href="https://www.enca.com/south-africa/crime-stats-to-be-released-quarterly">announcement</a> in June that the crime statistics would soon be released on a quarterly basis, but there is as yet no word on when or how this will be implemented.</p>
<p>Every year, the release of the SAPS crime statistics is met in equal parts with praise, criticism and scepticism. The African National Congress tends to interpret any reductions as indicators of success in policing and social development, the opposition does the reverse, and the police themselves tend to play down the extent to which they can be held responsible for the crime rates at all. </p>
<p>How the country makes sense of the crime statistics matters because it provides insight into how the society is shaped. More crucially, it should inform public and personal decisions about how best to make progress against crime.</p>
<h2>What to look for in the numbers</h2>
<p>The annual crime statistics usually show some rates going up even as others go down. Each of the almost 30 different crime types may be of particular interest to different people and interest groups, but we think that sustained trends in five areas provide an important snapshot of where we stand: </p>
<p><strong>Murder rate:</strong> will the last few years’ upswing in the national murder rate continue? Or will it stabilise or decline? </p>
<p>We <a href="https://theconversation.com/facts-show-south-africa-has-not-become-more-violent-since-democracy-62444">have shown</a> there was a long decline in the national murder rate between 1994 and 2011, followed by an uptick in the last three years although it is still at about half what it was 20 years ago. </p>
<p>As we indicate in our <a href="http://www.jonathanball.co.za/index.php/component/virtuemart/a-citizen-s-guide-to-crime-statistics-detail?Itemid=6">book</a>, murder is often considered an indicator of levels of violence and crime more generally, so its trends are highly noteworthy. A continuation of the recent upward trend would suggest the significance of new dynamics driving violence, perhaps including factors such as greater political volatility and growing inequality.</p>
<p><strong>Murder rate in Cape Town:</strong> will this again rise disproportionately to the rest of the country? Since 2011 Cape Town has taken a <a href="http://www.criminology.uct.ac.za/news/where-murder-rising-concentration-cape-town-and-diffusion-within">growing lead</a> among the metros, to the point where its murder rate of more than 60 per 100,000 people is now <a href="https://africacheck.org/spot_check/is-cape-towns-murder-rate-double-that-of-johannesburg/">about twice</a> that of Johannesburg and among the highest in the <a href="http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/most-dangerous-cities-in-the-world.html">world</a>. </p>
<p>Further increases would be a very worrying sign, pointing to the increasing entrenchment of gangsterism and the availability of firearms, possibly related to the <a href="http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-07-04-when-hell-is-not-hot-enough-a-top-cop-who-supplied-weapons-to-countrys-gangsters-and-right-wingers/">large-scale illegal sale</a> of firearms by a corrupt SAPS officer. Tackling this will require effective joint action from national and local government. </p>
<p><strong>Aggravated robbery trends:</strong> House and business robberies are among the very few crime types that have seen significant increases over the last decade. They are also major contributors to public fear, so their trends are important in understanding how people experience and perceive crime and policing.</p>
<p><a href="https://issafrica.org/crimehub/press-releases/south-africa-urgently-needs-a-new-approach-to-crime-violence-and-public-safety">Some experts</a> also consider aggravated robbery to be relatively subject to police prevention, especially through crime intelligence. Continued increases could therefore suggest a failure by the police. Conversely, a decline would be an important achievement. </p>
<p><strong>Burglary:</strong> These crimes have seen significant declines over the last ten years (supported by victim survey data), so a stabilisation or increase would be a major reversal of the long-term trend and a cause for concern. Although it does not involve physical violence, burglary is highly invasive. It is one of the most-feared crimes, so its trend is an important contributor to public perceptions of safety.</p>
<p><strong>Drug-related crime and illegal possession of firearms:</strong> These crimes are heavily dependent on police action for detection. They are one of the few indicators of the extent of police activity. While such data are not definitive, increases for example in firearms seizures can be a measure of police attempts to reduce violent crime.</p>
<p>The data on recorded crime should always be interpreted in the context of information from other sources, primarily the crime victimisation survey completed <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0341/P03412014.pdf">annually</a> by Statistics South Africa. </p>
<p>Finally, it must be stressed that crime statistics are public property. Every citizen has a right to access them easily, promptly and in a format that makes them useful to our lives and decisions. We also have a responsibility to read them critically but honestly.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64060/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anine Kriegler receives funding from the National Research Foundation and the David and Elaine Potter Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Shaw receives funding from the National Research Foundation.</span></em></p>South Africa releases crime statistics once a year. Politicians interpret them according to their particular agendas. Here’s a guide to what to look for and how to make sense of the trends.Anine Kriegler, Researcher and Doctoral Candidate in Criminology, University of Cape TownMark Shaw, Director of the Centre of Criminology, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/624442016-07-21T12:53:26Z2016-07-21T12:53:26ZFacts show South Africa has not become more violent since democracy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131246/original/image-20160720-31159-ucz277.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A man walks through a field of crosses erected near Pretoria, South Africa, to honour mostly white farmers who have died in
farm attacks. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Juda Ngwenya</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Given the weight people place on crime as an indicator of national health in South Africa, there is an urgent need for demystification around crime trends. </p>
<p>A lot of people think that violent crime in South Africa began rising <a href="http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-009-1479-7_6#page-1">in 1994</a> and has <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/Report-03-40-03/Report-03-40-032014.pdf">continued</a> to rise since then. They are wrong. Our <a href="http://www.jonathanball.co.za/index.php/component/virtuemart/a-citizen-s-guide-to-crime-statistics-detail?Itemid=6">new book</a>, which traces the national murder rates of over a century, shows that the past two decades have shown unprecedented improvement in the physical safety of the vast majority of people in the country. </p>
<p>For many South Africans, concerns about crime are made to stand in for bigger concerns about reconciliation, the fabric of social life and the prospects for the post-apartheid state. </p>
<p>South Africa has very high levels of fatal violence. Its 17,805 murders <a href="http://www.saps.gov.za/resource_centre/publications/statistics/crimestats/2015/crime_stats.php">recorded</a> last year in a population of a little under <a href="https://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0302/P03022015.pdf">55 million</a> make for a murder rate of 33 per 100,000. This compares <a href="https://www.unodc.org/documents/gsh/maps/Map_1.1.pdf">very poorly</a>, at about five times the <a href="https://www.unodc.org/documents/gsh/pdfs/2014_GLOBAL_HOMICIDE_BOOK_web.pdf">global average</a>. </p>
<h2>Imperfect crime statistics</h2>
<p>Official South African police statistics are an imperfect measure of crime. This is because a range of individual, social and institutional factors determine whether a given incident will be identified as criminal, reported to or detected by the police, and correctly recorded in the official statistics. These factors can all change, especially in the context of major political and economic changes. This makes it difficult to compare crime rates between different places and times. </p>
<p>The typical way to mitigate the problem that so much crime goes unrecorded is to focus primarily on murder. Whereas surveys suggest that a large and variable proportion of crimes as diverse as <a href="https://www.issafrica.org/uploads/PolBrief72.pdf">rape</a> and <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0341/P03412014.pdf">theft </a> never make it into the official statistics, a relatively large and stable proportion of murders do. Dead bodies are hard to hide, dispute or ignore. Murder rates are thus the dominant unit of criminological comparison.</p>
<p>A key advantage of murder rates is that they can be corroborated by mortuary records. In South Africa, comparing these sources suggests that a relatively small and probably shrinking proportion of suspected murder is failing to make it into the police figures. There is no good reason to reject South Africa’s official murder statistics as a solid basis for comparison.</p>
<h2>A national history of murder</h2>
<p>In our book, “<a href="http://www.jonathanball.co.za/index.php/component/virtuemart/a-citizen-s-guide-to-crime-statistics-detail?Itemid=6">A Citizen’s Guide to Crime Trends in South Africa</a>”, we combed through archives to put together all the official South African murder figures we could find since 1911. We also worked out the most likely population size within the official police jurisdiction for each year. This made it possible to track the annual murder rate per 100,000 people in the population for more than a century. The older the figures are, the more likely they are to be an under-count. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130687/original/image-20160715-2133-1flmot7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130687/original/image-20160715-2133-1flmot7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130687/original/image-20160715-2133-1flmot7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130687/original/image-20160715-2133-1flmot7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130687/original/image-20160715-2133-1flmot7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130687/original/image-20160715-2133-1flmot7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130687/original/image-20160715-2133-1flmot7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>The murder rate did not begin rising in 1994 – exactly the opposite. There was a steady increase to the 1950s, a slightly more rapid rise to the 1960s, some years of relative stability, and then a massive spike to a peak in 1993. </p>
<p>Then things turned around. From 1994 onwards, the murder rate fell by an average of 4% a year. Raw figures dropped from about 74 murders a day in 1994 to 49 a day in 2015, despite a population grown by about 40%. Internationally, trends this dramatic are rare and attract major research and theoretical attention. No one has yet noted or done much to investigate it in South Africa.</p>
<p>Murder rates today are not higher than ever. They have returned to about where they were in the 1970s. About 20% of the spike from the 1980s has been estimated to be directly attributable to political conflict. Periods of political and social upheaval tend to raise rates of all crimes, not just political ones. Recorded rates of other crimes like robbery and rape rose rapidly at the same time as murder did.</p>
<h2>Good news and bad news</h2>
<p>The strong downward trend after 1994 is confirmed in mortuary records and in crime victimisation surveys. These surveys also show that rates of non-fatal assault (including common assault, serious assault and attempted murder) dropped by similar margins. Fear of crime remains high and there do seem to have been increases in a number of types of robbery, so not all forms of violence have declined. However, the evidence suggests that people in South Africa are about half as likely to be physically assaulted or killed today as they were 20 years ago. This is good news.</p>
<p>The graph also reveals some possible bad news. The downward trend in the murder rate seems to be slowing or even reversing as of 2012. Much of this is driven by a huge increase in violence in the City of Cape Town, but other cities have also seen slight increases in the past three years. This may imply that there are new dynamics driving violence up for the first time in the life of the “new” South Africa. The widely-held assumption that murder rates have been going up all the while is not only incorrect, but it may be blinding us to the new problem that needs our attention.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62444/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anine Kriegler receives funding from the National Research Foundation and the David and Elaine Potter Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Shaw receives funding from the National Research Foundation. </span></em></p>The widely-held assumption that murder rates have been increasing in South Africa in the past two decades is incorrect – and it may divert attention from a new problem that needs attention.Anine Kriegler, Researcher and Doctoral Candidate in Criminology, University of Cape TownMark Shaw, Chair Professor, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/540432016-02-03T00:26:31Z2016-02-03T00:26:31ZFactCheck Q&A: is domestic violence in Australia on the decline?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109931/original/image-20160202-32254-1mznp3i.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Panellists discussed domestic violence on Q&A on February 1, 2016.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Q&A</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><strong>The Conversation is fact-checking claims made on Q&A, broadcast Mondays on the ABC at 9:35pm. Thank you to everyone who sent us quotes for checking via <a href="http://www.twitter.com/conversationEDU">Twitter</a> using hashtags #FactCheck and #QandA, on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/conversationEDU">Facebook</a> or by <a href="mailto:checkit@theconversation.edu.au">email</a>.</strong></p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Excerpt from Q&A, February 1, 2016.</span></figcaption>
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<blockquote>
<p>Ronaldo Aquino (audience member): Just over a week ago, Mark Latham alleged that the domestic violence figures are actually on the decline and he was chastised for it in social media and I checked the Australian Institute of Criminology and he was actually right. The figures actually peaked around 2007. So is this a case of the squeaky wheel gets the grease?<br></p>
<p>Tony Jones: … It might be a job for our fact checking unit on the issue of the statistics. <strong>– Q&A audience member Ronald Aquino and host Tony Jones, February 1, 2016</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Domestic or intimate partner violence is a common problem in Australia. A reported <a href="http://anrows.org.au/sites/default/files/Fast%20Facts%20-%20Violence%20against%20women%20key%20statistics.pdf">one in six women, and one in 19 men</a>, experience physical or sexual violence from a current or former partner in their lifetime. </p>
<p>Former politician Mark Latham raised the issue of domestic violence in a recent <a href="http://www.triplem.com.au/sydney/shows/lathamland/blog/listen-and-download-the-new-lathamland-podcast/">podcast</a>. He didn’t actually use the term “decline” in his podcast in relation to domestic violence rates, but he did <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/mark-latham-attacks-rosie-batty-elitists-domestic-violence-on-triple-m-show-20160122-gmbhj6.html#ixzz3y11fIb61">say</a> surveys show women are safer than ever before, and <a href="https://au.tv.yahoo.com/sunrise/video/watch/30640352/mark-latham-defends-domestic-violence-claims/#page1">told</a> Channel 7 viewers recently that the rate of domestic assault and incidents has come down. </p>
<p>So how true it is for the audience member to say the data shows rates are declining?</p>
<p>To answer this, we can look to three key sources of national data that can be compared over time: intimate partner homicide figures collected by the Australian Institute of Criminology, the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ (ABS) Personal Safety Survey, and reported police statistics. </p>
<h2>Intimate partner homicide</h2>
<p>According to the Australian Institute of Criminology’s <a href="http://www.aic.gov.au/about_aic/research_programs/nmp/0001.html">National Homicide Monitoring Program</a>, rates of intimate partner homicide have <a href="http://www.aic.gov.au/media_library/publications/rip/rip38/rip38.pdf">declined</a> since reaching a peak in 2007-08. </p>
<p>For example, the most recently published <a href="http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/current%20series/mr/21-40/mr23/04_homicide-2010-12.html">figures</a> report that in the two-year period between 2010 and 2012 there were 109 intimate partner homicides.</p>
<p>That is a small decrease from the <a href="http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/current%20series/mr/21-40/mr21/04_homicide.html">122 intimate partner homicides</a> for the proceeding two-year period 2008 to 2010.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109924/original/image-20160202-32247-r624on.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109924/original/image-20160202-32247-r624on.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109924/original/image-20160202-32247-r624on.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109924/original/image-20160202-32247-r624on.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109924/original/image-20160202-32247-r624on.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109924/original/image-20160202-32247-r624on.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109924/original/image-20160202-32247-r624on.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.aic.gov.au/media_library/publications/rip/rip38/rip38.pdf">Source: Australian Institute of Criminology NHMP 1989–90 to 2011–12</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This trend follows a decline in homicides generally, though the rates do vary from year to year. The 2011-12 figures show a small increase in people being killed by their intimate partners from the 2010-11 period. </p>
<h2>The ABS Personal Safety Survey</h2>
<p>Not all domestic violence ends in a death, so not all domestic violence shows up in intimate partner homicide data. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/4906.0">ABS Personal Safety Survey</a> is the most comprehensive national survey of interpersonal violence in Australia and has been run twice – in 2005 and 2012. A fresh survey is due to run in 2016. </p>
<p>It asks survey respondents to self-report whether they have experienced various forms of violence either in the last 12 months, or since the age of 15. </p>
<p>In its 2012 report, the Personal Safety Survey found that 17% of all adult women (1,479,900) and 5.3% of all adult men (448,000) surveyed had <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4906.0Chapter7002012">experienced violence by a partner since the age of 15</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109926/original/image-20160202-32257-zaohgj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109926/original/image-20160202-32257-zaohgj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109926/original/image-20160202-32257-zaohgj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109926/original/image-20160202-32257-zaohgj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109926/original/image-20160202-32257-zaohgj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109926/original/image-20160202-32257-zaohgj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109926/original/image-20160202-32257-zaohgj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109926/original/image-20160202-32257-zaohgj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4906.0Chapter7002012">ABS. Footnotes: (a) Includes physical violence and/or sexual violence. (b) The term 'partner' is used to describe a person the respondent lives with, or lived with at some point, in a married or de facto relationship.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In order to compare rates over <em>time</em> however, we need to look at the rates of partner violence reported in the last 12 months, between the Personal Safety Survey conducted in 2005 and the one conducted in 2012.</p>
<p>The ABS <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4923E61E9B7AD9A0CA257C3D000D8520?opendocument">reported</a> that between 2005 and 2012 there was no statistically significant change in the proportion of women and men who reported experiencing partner violence in the 12 months prior to the survey.</p>
<p>As the figures are based on self-reports by individuals about their victimisation, the Personal Safety Survey provides the best data we currently have about rates of domestic violence victimisation in Australia. </p>
<p>The first Personal Safety Survey was conducted in 2005. Prior to that was the Women’s Safety Survey of 1996. The 2005 Personal Safety Survey <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4906.0Main+Features12005%20(Reissue)?OpenDocument">reports</a> that “a smaller proportion of women reported violence in the 12 months prior to the survey in 2005 than in 1996”.</p>
<p>However, the ABS also cautions that extreme care must be taken when comparing the two survey results as some of the questions were different.</p>
<h2>Police family incident statistics</h2>
<p>Police statistics are another key source of information about rates of domestic violence. </p>
<p>In Australian states and territories there is not a single criminal offence of “domestic”, “family” or “partner” violence. Instead, informed estimates can be made based on data recording the number of domestic or family violence “incidents” attended by police. </p>
<p>The data vary between states and territories. In Victoria, for example, the Crimes Statistics Agency (CSA) reports a steady increase in the rates of family violence incidents attended by Victoria Police <a href="http://www.crimestatistics.vic.gov.au/home/crime+statistics/year+ending+september+2015/family+incidents">over the last five years</a>. </p>
<p>In the year ending September 30, 2015, the CSA reported a Victorian family violence incident rate of 1216.2 per 100,000 people. That is an increase of 62.7% from the year ending September 30, 2011.</p>
<p>So we know more victims are coming forward. We don’t know if that’s because of increased awareness of domestic violence in the community, or improved police and justice responses, or better available support services. </p>
<p>But when we consider that the majority (80-95%) of self-reported victims of violence from a current partner <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/25AF91125718ADF1CA257C3D000D856A?opendocument">did not report the violence to police</a>, it may be some time before police statistics provide an accurate measure of any changes in the extent problem.</p>
<h2>Verdict</h2>
<p>Despite small decreases in intimate partner <em>homicides</em>, Australian data from the last decade overall does not indicate that domestic violence is in decline. </p>
<p>The best available national data suggests the domestic violence victimisation rate is unchanged over the last decade, while police data shows substantial increases in the rate of incidents attended by police.</p>
<p>However, such increases in police statistics may indicate that more victims are coming forward and seeking support. It is difficult to know for sure whether or not rates of domestic violence are really increasing. <strong>– Anastasia Powell</strong></p>
<hr>
<h2>Review</h2>
<p>This is a sound analysis. I would highlight the issue of under-reporting, as mentioned by the author. Under-reporting does make it difficult to make a broad statement that domestic violence is in decline. There is increased reporting, but does this just reflect a change in our attitude towards reporting domestic violence?</p>
<p>Police services are also now more vigilant in ensuring that action is taken in domestic violence situations. Our definitions of what is considered domestic violence are also becoming more broad, which can also affect reporting figures. I agree with the author’s verdict. <strong>– Terry Goldsworthy</strong></p>
<p><em>UPDATE: This article was updated at 12.30pm on February 3, 2016 to include information on the 1996 Women’s Safety Survey.</em></p>
<hr>
<p><em>The National Sexual Assault, Family & Domestic Violence Counselling Line – 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for any Australian who has experienced, or is at risk of, family and domestic violence and/or sexual assault.</em></p>
<p><div class="callout"> Have you ever seen a “fact” worth checking? The Conversation’s FactCheck asks academic experts to test claims and see how true they are. We then ask a second academic to review an anonymous copy of the article. You can request a check at checkit@theconversation.edu.au. Please include the statement you would like us to check, the date it was made, and a link if possible.</div></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54043/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anastasia Powell receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Criminology Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Terry Goldsworthy is on the management committee of the Gold Coast Centre against Sexual Violence.</span></em></p>Are domestic violence figures actually on the decline? FactCheck investigates.Anastasia Powell, Senior Research and ARC DECRA Fellow, Justice and Legal Studies, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/521772015-12-11T14:24:29Z2015-12-11T14:24:29ZMore people are carrying knives – why?<p>Carrying a knife has become more common and more dangerous, according to newly released data. The number of people prosecuted for carrying a knife in the UK <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/483951/knife-possession-sentencing-bulletin-q3-2015.pdf">has gone up by 7%</a> in the past year. There has also been a 15% rise in stabbings and knife attacks, with more than <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-35068934">13,000 incidents</a> in the year to June 2015, while there <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/dec/10/the-hidden-lives-of-knife-crime-victims">have already been</a> a third more knife-related murders in London this year compared to last. </p>
<p>Explanations for these increases include that numbers are approaching their average again, following years of historically low rates of knife-related crime and that the increase is a direct consequence of <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/law/2015/jun/22/met-police-to-step-up-targeted-stop-and-search-amid-surge-in-knife-crime">reduced use of</a> stop and search by the police. Whatever the reason – and it is far too early to tell – one thing we can be certain of is the need to know more about why people carry and use weapons. </p>
<iframe src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/UijfR/1/" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" oallowfullscreen="oallowfullscreen" msallowfullscreen="msallowfullscreen" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>People who use knives are more likely to be <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12517202">male</a>, <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9894995">young adults</a> with a <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1745-9125.2000.tb00907.x/abstract">history</a> of violence and <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8924444">substance misuse</a>: the same factors that predict most other street violence. What <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1359178909000330">sets weapon users apart</a> from other violent offenders is the extreme nature of all these risk factors in their lives.</p>
<p>Studies from the <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cbm.1857/full">North America</a> and <a href="http://cjb.sagepub.com/content/33/6/706.full.pdf">Europe</a> have <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00787-015-0724-2">shown that</a> weapon users are more aggressive, begin offending earlier, have more extensive histories of violent victimisation in childhood, make more risky decisions and are more likely to commit serious violence in the future than other violent offenders. </p>
<h2>Armed and dangerous</h2>
<p>Picking up a weapon is not a solitary decision: many weapon carriers are influenced by their peers and their communities. US <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140197102904999">research has found</a> that if adolescents believe their peers carry weapons, they are more likely to carry a weapon themselves. An unfortunate <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF01537401#page-1">further finding</a> was that the more an adolescent carried a weapon, the more they believed that their friends carried weapons – even when this wasn’t true – so a feedback loop self-perpetuates the weapon carrying. </p>
<p>While this observation is unfortunate, it presents a valuable opportunity for intervention: if weapon carrying can be affected by perceived social norms, it’s possible these can be manipulated to reduce the number of people carrying weapons. </p>
<p>Community factors are also likely to play a role in determining who will carry a weapon – and what type. Irrespective of the amount of violence, the rate of legal firearm ownership in the US <a href="https://www.ncjrs.gov/app/publications/abstract.aspx?ID=165476">has been shown</a> to predict the rate of illegal gun-carrying by adolescents in a community. Yet this phenomenon appears to be limited to the US. Switzerland <a href="http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/switzerland">has a rate of firearm homicide</a> that is fifteen times less that of the US despite having a similar prevalence of household firearm ownership. </p>
<p>For someone who is planning or anticipating violence, using a weapon has <a href="https://www.academia.edu/14503662/Offender_decisions_about_weapon_carrying_and_weapon_use">many potential benefits</a>. Weapon use increases the likelihood of successfully winning an altercation or completing a robbery – ironically, by avoiding violence. It also increases the pool of potential victims beyond those the person can overcome physically and allows several victims to be controlled simultaneously and from distance. For some career criminals, being known for gratuitous violence only enhances their reputation. </p>
<p>On the downside, victims are more likely to be injured or die. The right weapon for the job is not always available and some weapons, such as illegal guns are expensive and difficult to source. Victims are more likely to regard violence involving a weapon as a crime and to report it and – as any student of the Cold War will tell you – pulling a knife on someone today could result in their pulling a gun on you tomorrow.</p>
<h2>Not just for self-defence</h2>
<p>Beyond these simple “cost-benefit calculations”, we can be sure that the motivations for weapon use are complex. For example, despite weapons being valuable tools for perpetrating violence, the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/245491150_Armed_and_Considered_Dangerous_A_Survey_of_Felons_and_Their_Weapons">most commonly cited</a> reason for carrying a weapon is self-defence. While this is possibly true in some cases, it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. </p>
<p>Studies <a href="http://yvj.sagepub.com/content/4/4/314.refs">from the US</a> have shown that substance misuse and a history of perpetrating violence are more likely to be the reason for somebody carrying a weapon than self-defence.</p>
<p>So we should ask why people feel the need to carry weapons for self-defence: don’t we have a police force to do this for us? Interviews with <a href="http://bernardharcourt.com/language-of-the-gun.html">young offenders</a> in the US found that many felt entitled to carry a weapon because of the disconnection they felt from “normal” society and the belief that the police could do nothing to keep them safe. </p>
<p>You’ll have noticed that much of the research we have on weapons comes from the US. But the high prevalence of <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-has-america-done-so-little-to-stop-gun-violence-46647">firearm ownership and murder</a> and the unusually lethal nature of guns makes the US a special case and limits the extent to which US research on weapon users can be generalised to the rest of the world. The motivations of those perpetrating weapon violence in countries with low prevalence of firearms may be entirely different. It is important that we explore these issues for ourselves so that we can reduce the number of young lives lost each year.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/52177/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Iain Brennan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As prosecutions for carrying a knife increase, what sets weapon users apart.Iain Brennan, Senior lecturer in criminology and psychology, University of HullLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/500972015-11-05T10:47:13Z2015-11-05T10:47:13ZIs there a link between youth poverty and crime? The answers may surprise you<p>Today, for a substantial minority of 16- to 24-year-olds, to be young is to be workless, poorly paid or just plain poor. Young people in this age group are among the most disadvantaged in the UK, according to a <a href="http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/about-us/our-work/key-projects/britain-fairer-0">disturbing new report</a> from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). </p>
<p>But despite economic and other hardships this young generation appears not to have been pushed into crime.</p>
<p>Some of the headline findings from the EHRC’s Is Britain Fairer report convey the gravity of the declining prospects for young people between 2008 and 2013, during and after the recessions triggered by the global financial crisis. Those aged 16 to 24 experienced the highest unemployment rates and the highest increase in unemployment. </p>
<p>More than one in five of those able to work did not have a job in 2013. Alongside this, some of the biggest declines in pay were experienced by 16- to 24-year-olds – a 60p/hour fall to £6.70. And almost a third of 16- to 24-year olds lived in poverty, compared with one in five 25- to 34- year-olds.</p>
<p>The same young group is significantly more likely than older groups to be stopped and searched by the police. And they are the most frequent victims of violence and sexual violence. </p>
<h2>Young people, poverty and crime</h2>
<p>But the report offers no data to suggest that they are also committing more crimes. This runs contrary to the so-called “<a href="https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/frontpage/2012/February/economic-crises-can-trigger-rise-in-crime.html">economic causes of crime</a>” thesis, which claims that unemployment is linked to crime, especially when large numbers of people are out of work. </p>
<p>Not only does the report find no evidence of this: it overlooks the dramatic observed decline in crime among young people. According to the Youth Justice Board, the number of those aged up to 20-years-old who were sentenced <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/399379/youth-justice-annual-stats-13-14.pdf">almost halved from over 90,000 to less than 50,000</a>, step-by-step, year-by-year, over exactly the same period covered in the EHRC report.</p>
<p>Understanding the relationship between being without work (or living in poverty) and crime has been the focus of a century of research. The economic causes of crime thesis is <a href="http://oro.open.ac.uk/35951/">strongly contested</a>, and the extremes of poverty and unemployment in the EHRC report are a powerful empirical stress test of its credibility. If either extreme were prone to triggering crime, it would have done so over this period. Not only did this not occur: the recessions apparently had the opposite effect.</p>
<p>To supporters of the thesis (and some agnostics) this is a paradox. More unemployment and poverty coincided with less crime. </p>
<h2>Can we believe the data?</h2>
<p>To explain this, one approach is to look at the <a href="http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/about-us/our-work/key-projects/britain-fairer/britain-fairer-supporting-evidence">data available to the EHRC</a> on unemployment as it drew up its report. There are good reasons to believe that the report may understate young people’s problems. But there are significant issues with the crime figures, too. </p>
<p>First, the report pays no attention to the incremental removal of welfare benefits for 16- to 24-year-olds, as the age thresholds at which they were entitled to benefits incrementally shifted upwards. Second, its evidence omits the next stratum of low pay which shows that <a href="http://www.kpmg.com/UK/en/IssuesAndInsights/ArticlesPublications/Documents/PDF/Latest%20News/kpmg-living-wage-research-2015.pdf">72% of 18- to 21-year-olds earn below the “living wage”.</a> </p>
<p>Third, it ignores the unreliability of data regarding the numbers of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET): in many areas the first post-school “destinations” of between one-in-five and two-in-five 16- to 18-year olds <a href="https://theconversation.com/hard-evidence-who-are-the-neets-25829">are unknown</a>. Young people easily disappear below the radar for all statistical purposes, and go uncounted as the extent of their contact with official agencies declines, partly due to local authority budget cuts. The various poverty and “inactivity” counts are therefore almost certainly considerable underestimates.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/100644/original/image-20151103-16510-4hzll4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/100644/original/image-20151103-16510-4hzll4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/100644/original/image-20151103-16510-4hzll4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/100644/original/image-20151103-16510-4hzll4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/100644/original/image-20151103-16510-4hzll4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/100644/original/image-20151103-16510-4hzll4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/100644/original/image-20151103-16510-4hzll4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">How accurate are the crime statistics for young people?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Handcuffs via Alexander Raths/www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But the crime figures I have quoted above from the Youth Justice Board also appear to represent substantial under-recording of crimes committed by 16- to 24-year-olds.</p>
<p>The crime figures are based on police-recorded crime that results in a conviction, whereas victim-reported crime is a higher estimate that is widely regarded as <a href="https://theconversation.com/hard-evidence-how-accurate-are-british-crime-statistics-22462">more representative</a>. Police targets <a href="http://thenayj.org.uk/wp-content/files_mf/children_in_conflict_with_the_law__final_22.03.12.pdf">were also adjusted</a> in 2005 to reduce the number of under-18s entering the criminal justice system for the first time. And in 2010, another policy shift led to an increased emphasis on informal responses to <a href="https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/youth-crime-and-justice/book237575#description">crimes committed by young people</a>, in an extra effort to minimise the numbers who have criminal records, thereby further reducing police-recorded crime rates. </p>
<p>Additionally, in 2014, the Office for National Statistics raised serious doubts about police data recording and checks, and the <a href="http://www.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/assessment/assessment/assessment-reports/index.html">quality of police statistics</a>. </p>
<h2>Underestimation</h2>
<p>All in all, the official counts of unemployment and of poverty are almost certainly significant underestimates, but so are the crime figures. The data is simply not sufficiently comprehensive, reliable and consistent over time to be sure. </p>
<p>Whether or not the economic causes of crime thesis is right with regard to young people during this period remains entirely unclear. What is certain is that it would take major change and resourcing to improve the data well enough to determine whether corresponding trends between unemployment, poverty and crime could demonstrate convincing causal connections between them. </p>
<p>Other lines of investigation and analyses might prove much more informative – such as those concerning the ways in which some of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable young people become <a href="http://oro.open.ac.uk/41800/">criminalised</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/50097/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ross Fergusson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Despite economic hardships, young people haven’t been pushed into crime. But can we trust the data?Ross Fergusson, Senior Lecturer in Social Policy, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/494032015-10-20T14:44:26Z2015-10-20T14:44:26ZIt’s about time cybercrimes appeared in crime figures if we are to take the problem seriously<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/98894/original/image-20151019-23245-1p4j24g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Online crime isn't as new as all that but it does now count.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Olivier Le Moal/shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The dramatic 40% increase in the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/oct/15/rate-in-england-and-wales-soars-as-cybercrime-included-for-first-time">recently published crime statistics for England and Wales</a> might appear an abrupt end to the <a href="http://www.academia.edu/11209950/Why_the_crime_drop">year-on-year decline in crime rates</a> over the past 20 years or so. But in fact this substantial leap is explained by the inclusion for the first time of <a href="http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/crime-stats/crime-statistics/year-ending-june-2015/index.html">estimates of online fraud and cybercrime</a> in the official statistics. </p>
<p>This raises the question as to whether crime is migrating online and if so, might this explain the crime drop – the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/the-mysterious-case-of-the-falling-criminal-offences-burglary-and-murders-down-again-statistics-show-9081599.html">continued fall in reported crime</a> since the 1990s. It’s important to realise that these aren’t all new crimes – just unreported in this format until now.</p>
<p>UK crime statistics are a combination of crimes recorded by the police (which now include cybercrimes) and estimates from the Crime Survey of England and Wales (which now includes questions about cybercrime and online frauds). Previously, police statistics included only those frauds reported to the <a href="https://www.cityoflondon.police.uk/advice-and-support/fraud-and-economic-crime/nfib/Pages/default.aspx">National Fraud Intelligence Bureau</a> via <a href="http://www.actionfraud.police.uk/">Action Fraud</a>, UK fraud prevention service <a href="https://www.cifas.org.uk/">Cifas</a>, or <a href="http://www.financialfraudaction.org.uk/">Financial Fraud Action UK</a>, which works against fraud on behalf of retailers. Online and cybercrime statistics were becoming conspicuous by their absence so their inclusion can only be welcomed.</p>
<h2>Is crime migrating online?</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/98896/original/image-20151019-23270-h8nr38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/98896/original/image-20151019-23270-h8nr38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/98896/original/image-20151019-23270-h8nr38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98896/original/image-20151019-23270-h8nr38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98896/original/image-20151019-23270-h8nr38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98896/original/image-20151019-23270-h8nr38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=636&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98896/original/image-20151019-23270-h8nr38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=636&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98896/original/image-20151019-23270-h8nr38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=636&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An easier kind of crime.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">poosan/shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The combination of networked and digital technologies certainly gives crime a boost in terms of the <a href="http://sgocnet.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/04_Wall_pp71-901.pdf">volume and speed of crime and the distance</a> across which it is committed. The steady increase in computing power and fall in associated costs means that one person can now control a complete crime operation by themselves. Put another way, why commit a high risk robbery (with a gang of criminals), when you can now commit many low risk £1 thefts or frauds <a href="https://theconversation.com/high-risk-cyber-crime-is-really-a-mixed-bag-of-threats-34091">in the comfort of your own home</a>? </p>
<p>The evidence from research suggests online and offline crime is conducted by <a href="http://sgocnet.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/04_Wall_pp71-901.pdf">very different offending groups</a>. This is especially the case with the more serious cyber-enabled crime such as frauds, or cyber-dependent crimes which only exist because of the internet – for example extortion using denial of service attacks. However, while there is a logical appeal to the idea that the fall in crime was accounted for by crime migrating online, there’s actually little evidence to support it – and much arguing against it.</p>
<p>There has not been a migration of either crimes or criminals: these are entirely new opportunities for crime that have appeared alongside old opportunities, which suggests that a more fundamental change in behaviour has taken place. </p>
<p>Instead, falling crime rates seem to be the result of multiple factors. These include the long-term reduction of violence due to <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27067615">cutting lead out of petrol</a>, careful management of statistics by the police, improvements to <a href="https://www.academia.edu/11209950/Why_the_crime_drop">locks and security technology</a>, demographic decline in the numbers of those at the key offending ages, or (as I am currently researching) an increase in time spent by young people doing online activities that keep them off the streets but also which appear to reduce offending practices through peer-to-peer “civilising”.</p>
<h2>The smoke and mirrors of statistics</h2>
<p>There are many practical problems in identifying to what extent a fraud is a cyber-fraud. This is especially the case when the obtaining of personal financial information takes place online through <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-cybersecurity-the-weakest-link-is-you-33524">phishing</a> or from a <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-the-dark-web-46070">dark web</a> site that sells <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10439463.2013.780227">stolen credit card details</a>, but when the monetary defrauding takes place offline, often by different people. Here the <a href="http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/business/economic-research-and-information/research-publications/Documents/Research-2015/Economic-Cybercrime-FullReport.pdf">boundaries between frauds and cybercrimes can become confused</a>. This is especially the case when it comes to how it is recorded and when a crime needs to be flagged as a cybercrime (or not) for the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/421319/count-fraud-april-2015.pdf">purposes of police statistics</a>. Of course cybercrime is a broader range of criminal behaviour than just fraud, including hacking, offensive and obscene content, and harassment. </p>
<p>To make matters worse, some of the crimes now included have enormous impacts on individuals, businesses and infrastructure, while others less so. The hypothetical £1 frauds mentioned earlier are individually small, but only significant in size when aggregated together – which is hard for a system based on one offender, one crime. A weakness of including these crimes in the statistics is that many seemingly inconsequential crimes can inflate the statistics to obscure important larger crimes. </p>
<p>It’s quite right to encourage the <a href="http://www.actionfraud.police.uk/">collection of strategic intelligence</a> about online offending at a national level, while making sense of this information to provide some <a href="https://www.cityoflondon.police.uk/advice-and-support/fraud-and-economic-crime/nfib/Pages/default.aspx">tactical benefit for the police in their role</a>. But there is much more work to be done to turn the theory into good policing practice. </p>
<p>Making online crime more visible in the statistics indicates that society is getting real about new offending areas like cybercrime and online fraud. The new statistics will help us to learn how to manage them, because they are not going away. But crime statistics simply give us year-on-year information about changes in criminal behaviour and are little more than tools to guide policing policy and indicate its effects. What crime statistics should never become used for, in my view, is an indicator of the overall health of society. That is a much bigger and altogether different task.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49403/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David S. Wall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An increase in the crime figures doesn’t necessarily mean an increase in crime.David S. Wall, Professor of Criminology, University of LeedsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/472862015-10-16T03:54:36Z2015-10-16T03:54:36ZSouth Africa mulls body cameras to improve police accountability, safety<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/98540/original/image-20151015-30734-ebhozy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Colorado Springs officer with a body-worn camera. There is growing support to introduce the technology in South Africa.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Rick Wilking</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The argument for the use of police body cameras is gaining momentum in South Africa, amid growing demand for greater police accountability, especially in the wake of the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/marikana-massacre-16-august-2012">Marikana massacre</a>. </p>
<p>The cameras are typically worn on the chests of police officers. Their use is becoming <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/robert-muggah/cop-cams-go-global">common globally</a>. </p>
<p>The chairperson of parliament’s portfolio committee on policing, <a href="http://www.parliament.gov.za/live/content.php?Item_ID=215&CommitteeID=99">Francois Beukman</a>, recently asked for <a href="http://www.sabc.co.za/news/a/77a0510049aaa037bbe6bba84320b537/SAPS-asked-to-use-more-technology-in-combating-police-killings-20153008">serious discussions</a> on introducing body cameras in the <a href="http://www.saps.gov.za/">South African Police Service</a>. </p>
<p>The police say they are discussing the use of <a href="https://pmg.org.za/committee-meeting/21400/">technology</a>, including body cameras, to improve communications and for the <a href="http://www.sabc.co.za/news/a/77a0510049aaa037bbe6bba84320b537/SAPS-asked-to-use-more-technology-in-combating-police-killings-20153008">safety of officers</a>. South Africa has a high rate of <a href="https://www.issafrica.org/iss-today/iss-today-how-to-stop-police-brutality-and-the-killing-of-police-officers-in-south-africa">police murders</a>.</p>
<h2>The case for police-worn body cameras</h2>
<p>A recent <a href="https://www.ojpdiagnosticcenter.org/sites/default/files/spotlight/download/Police%20Officer%20Body-Worn%20Cameras.pdf">study</a> involving the random assignment of body cameras to half of the 54 patrol officers in Rialto, California, showed:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… shifts without cameras experienced twice as many incidents of use of force as shifts with cameras.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>and</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… the rate of use of force incidents per 1000 contacts was reduced by 2.5 times.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In a recent examination of allegations of police inefficiency in <a href="http://www.khayelitshacommission.org.za/images/towards_khaye_docs/Khayelitsha_Commission_Report_WEB_FULL_TEXT_C.pdf">Khayelitsha</a>, a township for black people in Cape Town, criminologist <a href="http://www.criminology.uct.ac.za/dr-andrew-faull">Andrew Faull</a> suggested body cameras could improve the ability of police management to monitor officers’ <a href="http://www.khayelitshacommission.org.za/bundles/bundle-twelve/category/266-1-expert-reports.html?start=20">interactions</a> with civilians. </p>
<p>In March 2015, the <a href="http://www.apcof.org/home/">African Policing Civilian Oversight Forum</a> produced a <a href="http://igarape.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/AE-14_SMART-POLICING1.pdf">comprehensive report</a> on smart policing technologies. The report highlighted the need for body cameras on local police.</p>
<p>It also cited the Igarape Instute’s <a href="http://www.igarape.org.br/en/smart-policing/">Smart Policing Project</a>. The project consists of an app for smartphones that tracks video, audio and GPS coordinates passively and in real time. It aims to improve police accountability and strengthen public safety in low- and middle-income settings in Brazil, Kenya and South Africa. </p>
<p>South Africa ran a one-month pilot scheme under the Smart Policing Project in October 2014. The <a href="http://www.saps.gov.za/">South African Police Service</a> and the Cape Town municipal police declined to participate because the technology was <a href="http://igarape.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/AE-14_SMART-POLICING1.pdf">not stable</a>. According to Gideon Morris, the provincial secretary
for police, the focus of the pilot was:</p>
<p>… >to get the technology stable enough and to try and expand the use of it once they know that the prototype is working fully. Once this had been achieved the discussion with SAPS will be resumed.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, traffic officers from the National Department of Transport who took part in the pilot were not averse to wearing body cameras. They responded positively, saying their actions were questioned less by the public who knew they were being recorded.</p>
<h2>Police brutality a rising problem</h2>
<p>Incidents of <a href="http://www.csvr.org.za/index.php/media-articles/latest-csvr-in-the-media/2494-why-sa-cops-are-so-brutal.html">police brutality</a> are an ongoing problem in South Africa and body camera technology may help reduce them. Among the most recent high-profile cases:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>In 2013, cellphone images showed <a href="http://www.news24.com/Tags/People/mido_macia">Mido Macia</a>, a Mozambican national working in South Africa as a taxi driver, handcuffed and being dragged behind a <a href="https://www.google.co.za/search?q=Mido+Macia&rlz=1C1CHWA_enZA634ZA634&espv=2&biw=1366&bih=633&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0CDQQ7AlqFQoTCO3IxeqIxMgCFYdcFAod6qYLfg">police van</a>. The images were shot by members of the public and were <a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/2015/08/25/Judge-throws-book-at-cops-who-murdered-Mido-Macia">used in court</a>. </p></li>
<li><p>In 2011, the South African Broadcasting Corporation broadcast images of the killing by police of a protester <a href="http://www.sabc.co.za/news/a/d1a81b804d5cbf7f8f72ffe570eb4ca2/SAHRCundefinedunpacksundefinedreportundefinedonundefinedTatanesundefinedmurder-20120711">Andries Tatane</a>. Despite the evidence, the inability to accurately identify the officers involved resulted in their <a href="http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/2013/03/28/court-acquits-police-officers-in-andries-tatane-case">acquittal</a>. </p></li>
</ul>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oL-FuBGioHw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Use of technology not without risks</h2>
<p>The advantages of body cameras seem obvious. The civilian oversight forum report highlighted the potential benefits of recordings, including for police training. <a href="http://www.bwvsg.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/BWV-Scottish-Report.pdf">Research</a> from Scotland supports the evidentiary benefits of body cameras, saying they expedite resolution of cases. </p>
<p>They also provide additional protection for the police from public complaints. That way, they may even reduce the costs to the state from civil claims.</p>
<p>But the use of footage is not without <a href="https://theconversation.com/beware-the-unintended-consequences-of-police-worn-body-cameras-47882">unintended consequences</a>. In Australia, it was found that a victim’s demeanour at a scene often differed greatly from what was presented in the courtroom. Footage depicting the initial reactions of a victim compared to the post traumatic aftermath can result in a victim essentially being re-victimised in the process. </p>
<p>The disadvantages of cameras also relate to <a href="http://harvardlawreview.org/2015/04/considering-police-body-cameras/">privacy issues</a> for both the police and the public.</p>
<h2>Legislative changes required</h2>
<p>Among the hurdles to the use of technology in policing is the the need for enabling legislation, especially to cover cases where privacy and evidential matters arise. Unfortunately the law will always remain light years behind technology.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.gov.za/sites/www.gov.za/files/a25-02.pdf">Electronic Communications and Transactions Act</a> governs the admissibility and evidential weight of electronic evidence in court. </p>
<p>South African law relating to electronic evidence is, however, hampered by the lack of procedures governing the collection, storage and presentation of electronic evidence for purposes of <a href="https://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/law/elj/jilt/2009_1/watney/watney.pdf">criminal proceedings</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.justice.gov.za/salrc/media/20141210-DP131.pdf">South African Law Reform Commission</a> has recommended changes to legislation to address the issue.</p>
<h2>Clearing hurdles to progress</h2>
<p>The use of body cameras in South Africa is an inevitable, welcome progression. But for this to happen, both the public and the police must actively embrace the technology for their mutual benefit.</p>
<p>There also needs to be discussion about the extent that these technological advances can help or hinder academic research of the police. Police are notoriously difficult for researchers to access. Will it mean they have a legitimate reason to exclude personal access and require researchers to study camera footage instead?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/47286/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gráinne Perkins does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Police brutality is an ongoing problem in South Africa. Police-worn body cameras may help reduce such incidents by improving accountability. They may also contribute to the safety of officers.Gráinne Perkins, PhD Student, Centre of Criminology, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/458782015-08-12T04:16:31Z2015-08-12T04:16:31ZFactCheck: are ridesharing services like Uber no safer than hitchhiking?<blockquote>
<p>Ridesharing. It’s no safer than hitchhiking. – full page <a href="http://resources1.news.com.au/images/2015/08/09/1227476/478929-e72c61f0-3e29-11e5-b3df-81490740049a.jpg">advertisement</a> by the NSW Taxi Council.</p>
<p>Allowing illegal taxi services to operate unregulated puts the public at significant risk. – NSW Taxi Council CEO Roy Wakelin-King, <a href="http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/subscribe/news/1/index.html?sourceCode=DTWEB_WRE170_a&mode=premium&dest=http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/uber-cabbies-heat-up-the-ridesharing-battle-with-new-series-of-damning-ads/story-fni0cx12-1227476480344&memtype=registered">interview</a>, The Daily Telegraph, August 10, 2015.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In Australia, as in other countries, Uber and ridesharing apps like it are now posing a threat to the market dominance of traditional options such as taxis.</p>
<p>The threat to livelihood is taken so seriously that taxi drivers recently <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2015/6/25/8844649/french-taxi-driver-protest-uber-pop-paris">rioted in France</a> with the aim of stopping Uber providers and users and eroding their trade. But traditional commercial transport groups have launched other, more subtle, attacks aimed at making people think twice before using these types of apps. </p>
<p>One such tactic is to claim ridesharing carries an <a href="http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/uber-potential-sexual-haven-for-predators--taxi-council-20150727-gildms.html">increased risk of crime</a> when compared to traditional transport methods. In other words: scare tactics.</p>
<h2>The NSW Taxi Council’s evidence</h2>
<p>When asked for data to support the claim that ridesharing is no safer than hitchhiking, a NSW Taxi Council spokesman said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Illegal ridesharing is provided by private drivers in private vehicles. The services are provided outside of the law and therefore none of the safety systems that are mandated for taxis exist in illegal ridesharing vehicles and ridesharing drivers.</p>
<p>Specifically, illegal ridesharing vehicles do not have:</p>
<ul>
<li>Security cameras as mandated by the NSW Government</li>
<li>Alarm systems as required by the NSW Government</li>
<li>Vehicle tracking devices that are fixed to the vehicle</li>
<li>Distinctive livery and internationally recognised signage to identify the vehicle</li>
<li>Compulsory independent vehicle checks on a regular basis at a Government authorised inspection station</li>
<li>Roadside compliance operations which in the last 12 months have checked over 2000 vehicles</li>
</ul>
<p>In addition to the above, illegal ridesharing drivers are not required by law to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Undergo criminal background checks</li>
<li>Driver history checks</li>
<li>Medical checks to a national standard</li>
<li>Immigration checks</li>
<li>National based training and competency standards</li>
<li>Independent knowledge and English language testing</li>
</ul>
<p>For taxis, all of these checks occur upon application and they are ongoing. Taxi drivers who fails to continuously meet these obligations can lose their authority to drive. It is clear that illegal ridesharing, in the absence of the government requirements above, is no safer than hitchhiking. There have been numerous examples both overseas and now emerging in Australia where passengers of illegal taxi services like ridesharing are being exposed to significant risk.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The spokesman referred The Conversation to <a href="http://www.wfaa.com/story/news/crime/2015/08/08/uber-admits-mistakes-apologizes--sex-assault-victim/31328465/">several</a> <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com.au/r-indian-woman-alleges-rape-by-uber-cab-driver-in-new-delhi-2014-12">recent</a> <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-uber-criminal-records-20150804-story.html">examples</a> <a href="http://www.thelocal.se/20150707/uber-sweden-in-hot-water-over-driver-checks">of</a> <a href="http://www.nswtaxi.org.au/sites/default/files/Triple%20J%20hack_wed_2015_5_6.mp3">risk</a> to <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/mar/23/united-nations-uber-womens-safety">passengers</a>.</p>
<p>In both the <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/whos-driving-you-chilling-uber-6204293">UK</a> and the <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-uber-criminal-records-20150804-story.html">US</a>, criminals convicted of sexual and violent crimes have successfully passed Uber background checks. All criminal background checks of Uber drivers are conducted via the Australian Federal Police’s <a href="http://www.crimtrac.gov.au">Crimtrac</a> database, while driving history checks are conducted by the relevant transport authority in each state. </p>
<p>A factsheet provided to The Conversation by Uber says: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>When a rider books a ride through the app they are provided with the name, photograph and vehicle plate number of the driver-partner and can track their route on a map. A rider can also share the details of their trip with others through the Share My ETA feature.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Uber also riders and drivers to rate each other out of five stars after each trip and to submit written feedback.</p>
<p>The Routine Activity Theory or “crime triangle” theory provides a relatively simple explanation as to why most crimes occur. The theory argues that a crime is more likely to occur when there is a lack of capable guardianship.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/91265/original/image-20150810-11068-1efexp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/91265/original/image-20150810-11068-1efexp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/91265/original/image-20150810-11068-1efexp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91265/original/image-20150810-11068-1efexp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91265/original/image-20150810-11068-1efexp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91265/original/image-20150810-11068-1efexp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91265/original/image-20150810-11068-1efexp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91265/original/image-20150810-11068-1efexp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Crime Triangle theory as to why crime occurs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Terry Goldsworthy</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The NSW Taxi Council’s claim that using an Uber service is as dangerous as hitchhiking is not well supported by evidence. Clearly, it is not as dangerous. Uber drivers do undergo some background checking; in the hitchhiking scenario there is none. Second, in using an Uber app, the passenger creates an electronic record of their interaction with the provider. </p>
<p>This is something that would be of crucial importance to investigators later, as it would allow the driver to be identified. The app and its electronic record provides guardianship and makes the offence less appealing to a potential offender. It may not stop the offence, but it will certainly aid in solving it. The same can be said for booking a taxi online, use of in-taxi cameras and GPS tracking for both taxis and Uber.</p>
<p>Violent crime is not unique to rideshare app users. In past years, a number of concerns have been raised in <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/we-cant-ignore-the-reality-of-cab-attacks-20130920-2u56s.html">Australia</a> and <a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3854/uk-taxi-rapes">overseas</a> about sexual offences committed by taxi drivers against passengers. </p>
<p>In some regards, Uber is <em>more</em> traceable due to it operating through technology. Compare that to a taxi fare picked up on the side of the road. Although most taxis now have GPS tracking and in-car cameras, these are only of use once the taxi used in the offence has been identified. It is for this reason that the <a href="https://www.police.qld.gov.au/programs/cscp/personalSafety/adults/safetyonpublictransport.htm">Queensland Police Service</a> advises people to book a taxi (electronically, via phone or SMS) in preference to hailing one. A record is kept by taxi companies of all bookings made.</p>
<h2>Little – if any – empirical data</h2>
<p>Much of the debate is relying on single cases or anecdotal evidence. There is little – if any – empirical data available to draw a valid comparison between Uber and taxis drivers and the crimes they may commit in the course of their employ.</p>
<p>In some jurisdictions, there is some limited data that has been made publicly available in relation to <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/police-target-taxi-crimes-20120331-1w5il.html">offences committed by taxis drivers</a>. </p>
<p>Uber, however, is an unknown beast. One <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/03/are-taxis-safer-than-uber/386207/">US news service</a> did try to unsuccessfully compare data for Uber and taxi crime from government sources. The reporters asked police departments in five cities — Boston, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, and Washington, D.C. — for information about assaults against passengers of taxis or Uber cars, finding that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>None of them tracked violent crimes at that level. This is meaningful because it underscores how the narrative about ridesharing and public safety is largely anecdotal. It raises another question, too: If Uber is potentially unsafe for passengers, what about taxis?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>To ensure safety, Uber <a href="https://newsroom.uber.com/australia/2015/07/ubersafeau/">relies</a> on background checks, safe pickups, anonymous feedback, driver profiles and insurance and certain vehicle standards. </p>
<p>The taxi industry argues that this falls short of its requirements, but does not provide empirical data to show that ridesharing is no safer than hitchhiking.</p>
<h2>Verdict</h2>
<p>The claim that ridesharing is no safer than hitchhiking is not supported by empirical data. Much of the data used by critics of Uber rely on anecdotal data and media reports to support their view ridesharing puts passengers at personal risk. </p>
<p>In general terms, a Uber service is safer than hitchhiking due to the safeguards built into the Uber system. Is it as safe as catching a taxis? The answer to this remains unknown due to a lack of data and empirical research. </p>
<hr>
<h2>Review</h2>
<p>I concur with this assessment. In order to sustain the claim made, there would need to a systematic comparison of the experiences of hitchhikers and Uber passengers. There is no study of this kind, it would appear, or those making the claim would presumably have referred to it. </p>
<p>Anecdotal accounts, while making good news copy at times, prove nothing; as noted, anecdotes can also be found to indicate dangers in the regulated taxi industry. It should be borne in mind that there is powerful negative symbolism associated with hitchhiking in New South Wales not least because of the <a href="http://guides.sl.nsw.gov.au/content.php?pid=242811&sid=2075601">Ivan Milat</a> cases. </p>
<p>To invoke that association even implicitly or subconsciously in relation to the activities of one’s competitors is a tactic likely to be effective in terms of raising public fears about the safety of alternatives to regulated taxis. <strong>– Andrew Goldsmith</strong></p>
<hr>
<p><em>Correction: An earlier version of this article included a comment from the NSW Taxi Council that there is no mandatory maximum age for ridesharing vehicles. In fact, Uber does have a mandatory maximum age for vehicles.</em></p>
<p><div class="callout"> Have you ever seen a “fact” that doesn’t look quite right? The Conversation’s FactCheck asks academic experts to test claims and see how true they are. We then ask a second academic to review an anonymous copy of the article. You can request a check at checkit@theconversation.edu.au. Please include the statement you would like us to check, the date it was made, and a link if possible.</div></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/45878/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Goldsmith has received funding in the past form the ARC. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Terry Goldsworthy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The NSW Taxi Council says ridesharing platforms like uberX are no safer than hitchhiking. Is that supported by the evidence?Terry Goldsworthy, Assistant Professor in Criminology, Bond UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/410582015-04-30T14:52:08Z2015-04-30T14:52:08ZThe only thing we have to fear is dodgy crime reporting<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79957/original/image-20150430-30711-4ehqwi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Run, don't walk.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/stuant63/2255781557">stuart anthony</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Two newspaper headlines from a single day illustrate the contested interpretation of crime statistics as we approach polling day. “<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/apr/23/crime-rate-ons-lowest-level-england-wales-police">Recorded crime figures fall to level not seen since 1981</a>” the Guardian said. “<a href="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/crime/article4420772.ece">Rapes fuel first rise in crime for a decade</a>”, the Times told its readers. </p>
<p>To be fair to both newspapers, they attempt to provide some kind of contextual understanding of the ostensibly conflicting data collected by the British Crime Survey and the police-recorded figures. But, like King Canute, their efforts are puny against the tide of misinformation and fear-mongering which rolls relentlessly off the presses in the UK.</p>
<p>If fear of immigration is a highly marketable commodity for politicians and sections of the press, so is fear of crime. It enables them to make claims, and devise policies which have no foundation in evidence. </p>
<p>For a while under New Labour the Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions adopted the fear of crime as one measure of best-value performance. On what basis? Surveys of the public, which asked broad-brush questions such as: “Are you ‘very’ or ‘fairly’ fearful about crime levels?”. </p>
<p>Leaving aside the real possibility that surveys themselves generate exaggeratedly “fearful” responses, <a href="http://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=4665&type=Data%20catalogue">criminological research</a> indicates that “fear” (or perhaps, to be more accurate, “concern”) is not a constant factor, even among those who say they are fearful – and that to devise policies based on that small minority for whom fear of crime affects their quality of life is wholly misguided.</p>
<p>In a number of general elections it was an article of faith with politicians of all stripes that public fears could be allayed by the sight of “bobbies on the beat”. While it is true that the exigencies of public sector austerity have put paid to the bidding war between Labour and the Conservatives to fund “record” numbers of uniformed officers, it is interesting to note that Labour’s 2015 crime and justice manifesto contains <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/apr/10/labour-pledges-800m-pounds-protect-police-officer-numbers-crime-justice-manifesto">a commitment by shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper</a> to find the money to “safeguard” more than 10,000 neighbourhood police posts over the next three years. </p>
<p>Where is the evidence that this will help reduce crime? Indeed, where is the evidence that it will even reduce fear of crime?</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79958/original/image-20150430-30709-v731zc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79958/original/image-20150430-30709-v731zc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79958/original/image-20150430-30709-v731zc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79958/original/image-20150430-30709-v731zc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79958/original/image-20150430-30709-v731zc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79958/original/image-20150430-30709-v731zc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79958/original/image-20150430-30709-v731zc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Feel better?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">FaceMePLS</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2003, <a href="http://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/files/jrf/1859351484.pdf">researchers at Leeds University</a> tested out the proposition that visible policing necessarily has a beneficial impact on fear of crime by analysing an experiment in which the Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust funded extra policing cover for the village of New Earswick in York. The researchers (Adam Crawford, Stuart Lister and David Wall) found that residents’ perceptions of insecurity increased – as the report notes: “both crime and the fear of crime increased during the implementation of the project and residents’ satisfaction with the local police service declined”.</p>
<p>Of course, it would be absurd to extrapolate from one small-scale experiment to the whole of England and Wales, but when has a politician raised the spectre of an “expectations deficit” when talking up the value of neighbourhood or community policing?</p>
<p>In common with most recent elections, crime has featured very little in campaigning in 2015. But risk and fear are inherent in the two major issues – the economy and immigration. On April 19, the Observer <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/apr/19/britain-uncovered-survey-attitudes-beliefs-britons-2015">carried the results</a> of a survey by Opinium Research which asked 1,019 voters whether immigration had a positive or negative effect on crime: 11% said positive, 60% negative. </p>
<p>The respondents were not asked to justify their answer – but politicians should be; the election is the best chance we have to hold them to account for the evidence behind their promises. More than 25 years of analysing and reporting on crime has taught me that the twin enemies of sound governance are misplaced certainty and a lever labelled: “criminal justice policy” which few home or justice secretaries can resist the temptation to pull. </p>
<p>If Sense About Science’s campaign, <a href="http://www.bps.org.uk/news/politicians-warned-over-manifesto-claims-crime">Making Sense of Crime</a>, can persuade them to take even a micro-second to think first and examine the evidence, it will have been successful.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41058/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jon Silverman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Time for politicians to get honest about crime statistics.Jon Silverman, Research Professor Media and Criminal Justice, University of BedfordshireLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/409152015-04-30T05:16:37Z2015-04-30T05:16:37ZFact Check: has violent crime gone up?<blockquote>
<p>In the last 12 months, reports of violent crime have gone up very substantially. It is a very significant increase in violent crime reported in the last 12 months. </p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>Yvette Cooper, Labour shadow home secretary, speaking on the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b05sjbbc/daily-politics-2015-election-debates-home-affairs">Daily Politics Home Affairs</a> debate.</strong></p>
<blockquote>
<p>This is pure scaremongering. The fact is that crime has gone down, it’s now at record low levels … both under police recorded crime and the independent crime survey which started in 1981. </p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>Norman Baker, Liberal Democrat, former minister for crime prevention in the same debate.</strong></p>
<p>Labour also came under fire in this Daily Politics debate for a claim in <a href="http://b.3cdn.net/labouruk/e1d45da42456423b8c_vwm6brbvb.pdf">its manifesto</a> that “violent crimes have gone up”. To check whether violent crime is going up or down, it’s important to note that we have two means of measuring crime. </p>
<p>First, <a href="http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/method-quality/specific/crime-statistics-methodology/guide-to-finding-crime-statistics/police-recorded-crime/index.html">police-recorded crime</a> statistics: these include incidents that come to the attention of the police and are recorded by them as “crimes”. Second, the <a href="http://www.crimesurvey.co.uk/">Crime Survey for England and Wales</a> (CSEW): this is a very large, rolling annual survey of sizeable sample of the population. Both sources have their problems, but it is generally the crime survey that is considered the more reliable indicator of the two. </p>
<p>The data from the crime survey is very clear. Violent crime <a href="http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_401896.pdf">has been in almost continual decline</a> since the mid-1990s and current estimates suggest it is at its lowest level since the survey was instituted at the beginning of the 1980s. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79625/original/image-20150428-3080-1uqav8w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79625/original/image-20150428-3080-1uqav8w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79625/original/image-20150428-3080-1uqav8w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79625/original/image-20150428-3080-1uqav8w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79625/original/image-20150428-3080-1uqav8w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79625/original/image-20150428-3080-1uqav8w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79625/original/image-20150428-3080-1uqav8w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79625/original/image-20150428-3080-1uqav8w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Trends in violence 1981 – 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_401896.pdf">Crime Survey England & Wales</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As with all sources of statistics, the CSEW comes with various “health warnings”. It is a household survey and therefore misses a lot of people who live in institutional settings such as prisons or student halls of residence. Until very recently it excluded people below the age of 16. It relies on victims’ reports and therefore cannot deal with so-called “victimless crimes” but, with the exception of homicide, this doesn’t affect violence. </p>
<p>In reality, the care and consistency with which the CSEW is undertaken undoubtedly makes it a reasonable medium to long-term indicator of crime trends. Any remaining doubts about what is happening to violent crime can be dispelled by turning to two other sources of data, both of which lend credence to the picture painted by the crime survey. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/crime-stats/crime-statistics/focus-on-violent-crime-and-sexual-offences--2013-14/rpt-chapter-1.html?format=print">National Health Service</a> data on assault admissions to hospitals in England suggested a 5% drop over the past year. The impressive survey work in hospital emergency departments and walk-in centres, undertaken by the Cardiff University Violence Research Group, <a href="http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/news/view/95161-serious-violence-in-england-and-wales-drops-10-in-2014">found a 10% drop</a> between 2013 and 2014 in serious violence-related attendances. This research from A&E also supports the longer-term trend indicated by the CSEW, suggesting that with the exception of 2008, there had been decreases in serious violence every year since 2001. </p>
<p>At this point we should return to Yvette Cooper’s statement for it is important to note that what she actually claimed was that reports of violent crime have gone up very substantially. To check this we need to look at the latest <a href="http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_401896.pdf%20">police-recorded crime statistics</a>. Additionally taking Yvette Cooper’s much shorter time period – the last 12 months only – they do support the idea that violent crime generally, and sexual offences in particular, have increased. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79624/original/image-20150428-3098-1i0os8z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79624/original/image-20150428-3098-1i0os8z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79624/original/image-20150428-3098-1i0os8z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79624/original/image-20150428-3098-1i0os8z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79624/original/image-20150428-3098-1i0os8z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79624/original/image-20150428-3098-1i0os8z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79624/original/image-20150428-3098-1i0os8z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Selected victim-based recorded crime categories – percentage change 2013-14.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_401896.pdf">ONS</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Why might this be the case and how might we explain the difference between the two data sources? The answer, in short, is that these statistics tell us more about recording trends, especially in the short-term, than they do about crime trends. </p>
<p>It’s likely that they are illustrating increased compliance with the rules that govern how the police record crime – so they probably reflect improved recording. These improvements come in the wake of the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/15/police-crime-figures-status-claims-fiddling">decision in early 2014</a> by the UK Statistics Authority to cease to designate recorded crime statistics as “national statistics” given their unreliability. </p>
<p>However, it seems likely that the increased emphasis that has been placed on improving police activity in the area of domestic violence has also contributed to increased reporting and recording in that area in particular. </p>
<h2>Verdict</h2>
<p>Although the data is reasonably clear, the verdict is complicated. There is some evidence, albeit limited, of increased reports of violent crime, certainly domestic violence, over the past year. However, there is little evidence to support the claim more generally of reports of violent crime going up very substantially. Much more likely is that they are being recorded more accurately by the police.</p>
<p>The real problem, however, lies in using police-recorded crime statistics, especially over very short time periods, to make claims about crime trends. In fact, more reliable measures like the CSEW show violent crime to have fallen over a very long time period, and by a substantial amount – just as Norman Baker indicated in his reply to Yvette Cooper, though he then ruined it by overstepping the mark with his claim that recorded crime was also at an all time low (it is not). </p>
<p>So, Yvette Cooper’s claim is technically correct, though she is on very thin ice. What she could not easily defend is the claim in the Labour Party election manifesto which states quite baldly that: “Violent crimes have gone up”. </p>
<h2>Review</h2>
<p>This is a balanced assessment of Yvette Cooper’s claim. It is generous in describing this as technically correct.</p>
<p>It is clear that once the Audit Commission stopped auditing police recording practice in 2007 the overall recording rate fell. What caused the police to improve their recording rate in 2013-14? The UK Statistics Authority removal of the “National Statistics” designation was clearly one factor. But there was also the highly <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/public-administration-select-committee/inquiries/parliament-2010/crime-statistics/">critical inquiry</a> of the House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee, and a <a href="http://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmic/publication/crime-recording-in-kent/">series</a> of critical <a href="https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmic/publication/crime-data-integrity-force-reports/">reports</a> by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC). </p>
<p>So long as HMIC maintains pressure on the police to record crime more fully, we can expect to see a divergence between the crime survey trend and police statistics. – <strong>Mike Hough</strong></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Newburn has received funding from a number of government departments, the Economic and Social Research Council, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Nuffield Foundation and Open Society Foundations. He is a trustee of the Howard League for Penal Reform. The views expressed in this article are his own. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mike Hough was involved in designing the British Crime Survey at the Home Office. He has worked for and advised the Home Office and other organisations including HM Inspectorate of Constabulary, the College of Policing, the Prison Reform Trust and the Howard League for Penal Reform. The views expressed in this article are his own. </span></em></p>Labour and the Lib Dems have clashed over whether crime is going up or down. Which is it?Tim Newburn, Professor of Criminology and Social Policy, London School of Economics and Political ScienceLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.