Australia Yearbook - 2001

Chapter 11—Crime and justice 477
Crime in twentieth century
Australia
Dr Adam Graycar
Dr Adam Graycar has been Director of the
Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) since
November 1994. He has had long experience in
policy making, management and research and
research management at the most senior levels
in Australia. He has worked as an academic at
Flinders University and the University of New
South Wales and has been head of various
agencies within the Government of South
Australia, including appointment as Australia’s
first Commissioner for the Ageing
(1985–1990). He is the author of numerous
books and articles in criminology and
social policy, and has two doctorates from
the University of NSW. He is a Fellow of the
Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, a
Fellow of the Australian Institute of
Management, and is Adjunct Professor of
Social Policy, University of Queensland and
University of Hong Kong.
Introduction
Australia was a less violent society at the end of
the twentieth century than it was at the end of
the nineteenth or eighteenth centuries. Violence
and theft have been part of human interaction for
all of recorded history, but it is not easy to
compare statistics on the extent of violence and
theft across the span of the twentieth century.
Crimes that have existed across the span of the
century such as homicide, burglary, assault, theft,
robbery, rape and kidnapping have seen
variations in definition in legislation and varying
levels of attention from police and courts. Crimes
such as motor vehicle theft were inconsequential
at the beginning of the century, but significant at
the end of the century, while crimes that involve
child abuse or domestic violence were more
likely to be regarded as private matters at the
start of the century, yet at the end were firmly
within the criminal justice sphere.
Crimes such as superannuation fraud, health
insurance fraud, theft of telecommunications
services, electronic vandalism and varieties of
computer hacking, credit card fraud, Internet
child pornography, electronic funds transfer
crime and electronic money laundering were not
on the criminal horizon at the start of the
century. However, nude or even topless bathing,
or homosexual acts between consenting adults,
brought criminal sanctions, while public
drunkenness comprised more than half of all
offences brought before the Magistrates’ courts in
the early years of the twentieth century, and
this persisted until the middle of the century.
While we can focus on significant differences,
some similar threads run right through the
century. Alcohol-related crime was a
predominant cause of criminal justice
involvement in 1900, while today it is
substance abuse in general, but alcohol still
remains a major component in criminal
activity. As noted later, many of our prison
population in 1900 were incarcerated
principally as a result of their mental state
(although many of them would have been
counted under petty crime or vagrancy), and
in 2000 this situation has changed very little.
In 1900 young males contributed significantly
to criminal activities, and at the end of the
century this continues to be the case.
What mattered 100 years ago and what
happens today are very different. One hundred
years ago there was great concern about
drunkenness, gambling and ‘Chinese opium
dens’, whereas today concerns such as cyber
crime, the international trafficking of drugs and
their consequences in Australia, domestic
burglary and (family) violence against women
are prominent in crime discussions.
At the beginning of the century Australia’s
Aboriginal population was not counted in
official statistics, nor did Aboriginal people
feature in crime statistics. A lot of Indigenous
justice was ‘extra-legal’ (i.e. administrative,