Recidivism in Australia : findings and future research - Australian ...

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Recidivism in Australia: findings and future research
There are also some offences such as tax-related or social security offences which, because
they are detected and prosecuted by agencies other than the police, (notably the Australian
Taxation Office or Centrelink) are not recorded in police databases.
Overestimating offending
Police data may also overestimate offending. Perhaps the most obvious situation is where an
alleged offender is apprehended and charged by the police for an offence they did not commit.
This might be for two main reasons. First, at the time of apprehension a police officer must
have reasonable grounds for suspecting that the offender is guilty, whereas in court, the
prosecution must prove the case beyond reasonable doubt. The primary responsibility of the
police is to prevent crime by apprehending suspected offenders, some of whom may be
released without arrest or charge. Second, there are indications from the literature that police
may inflate the number of offences and charges applied to an offender in some cases, in the
hope of securing a conviction on at least one of those charges (Payne 2006).
Misrepresenting time
It is standard practice to record the apprehension date and/or arrest/charge date. In some
states, police may also record the date of the actual offending episode that gave rise to the
apprehension. However, where such a date is not recorded or, if recorded, is not available to
the researcher, then the only alternative is to use the date of the apprehension and charge as
a proxy date for the offending event itself. In those situations where the date of apprehension is
far removed from the date at which the offence was actually committed, police apprehension
data will provide an inaccurate ‘proxy’ record for the timing of the criminal event itself.
The disparity between apprehension and event dates at the police level may result from any
number of factors, not the least of which is the time taken for the victim to report the offences
and for the police to investigate the crime and to identify, locate and apprehend the offender.
All of this may take days, weeks or even years, and is likely to vary considerably depending
on the type of offence involved. It is well documented, for example, that many child sex offences
are not reported until the victim becomes an adult. In such cases, decades may elapse between
the commission of the offence and the subsequent apprehension of the offender. Homicides
are another example of where the apprehension date may be far removed from the date
of offence – with delays primarily attributable to the lengthy periods of investigation required
in these cases.