Australia Yearbook - 2001

Chapter 11—Crime and justice 479
The decline in crime was noted in the first
Commonwealth Year Book, yet no adequate
explanations were found. The Year Book
commented:
“Causes of Decrease in Crime—The statistics
given show that there has been a considerable
decrease in crime throughout Australasia…The
deterrent effect of punishment, in respect of
many offences, notably drunkenness,
vagrancy, petty larcenies, etc., appears to be
almost negligible. In general, punishment has
declined in brutality and severity, and has
improved in respect of being based to a
greater extent upon a scientific [penological]
system, though in this latter respect there is
yet much to be desired…Part of the
improvement may no doubt be referred also
to the general amelioration in social condition
that has taken place during the last fifty years”
(Commonwealth Year Book No.1, 1908,
pp. 760–761).
Reporting on the 1999 Recorded Crime Statistics,
the Australian Bureau of Statistics (Media release
82/2000, 28 June 2000) noted that robbery was
down for the first time in seven years, and the
report itself showed declines in most crimes:
homicide (including attempted murder); sexual
assault; robbery; blackmail; burglary; and motor
vehicle theft. There was, however, an increase in
assault and ‘other theft’.
The first Commonwealth Year Book lamented the
fact that Australia’s statistical collections were not
uniform. It noted “without uniformity there is no
safety in statistics” (Commonwealth Year Book
1908, p. 7). It also noted that “comparisons are
valueless unless the data compared are of the
same type, it by no means infrequently happens
that aggregates are formed from, or comparisons
are made with, dissimilar data” (Commonwealth
Year Book 1908, p.7).
This warning is still made at the end of the
century, and it has only been since 1993 that
Australia has had crime statistics that can in any
way be described as uniform. Even so, they cover
nine sets of offences, and are confined to reports
to police.
Few of the items reported at the beginning of the
century can be reported on in similar terms at the
end of the century. The first Commonwealth Year
Book has tables of persons charged before
magistrates 1901–1906, together with numbers of
convictions and committals. These tables
cannot meaningfully be replicated today.
About 40% of the cases are for drunkenness.
Different offences are now on the statute
books, and some terminological changes
have taken place.
In 1988 the Australian Institute of
Criminology published, as a Bicentennial
project, a substantial volume entitled Source
Book of Australian Criminal and Social
Statistics, 1804–1988. Section 6 on Cases
Processed at Magistrates’ Courts covers
260 pages of tables and goes back to earliest
times, but the tables all end in the 1970s. The
book notes that most jurisdictions “have
introduced substantial changes in the
processing and classification of charges
which have resulted in irreconcilable
discontinuities in the data system” (p. 228).
Other statements in early Year Books cause
much pondering. For example the 1903
Victorian Year Book claimed “of the
offenders who are reported as having
committed offences, generally about 50 per
cent are arrested, 38 per cent are
summoned, whilst about 11 per cent are still
at large at the end of March of the year
following that in which the offence was
reported” (Victorian Year Book 1903, p. 299).
We cannot replicate data such as this in 2000
for we do not know the ingredients behind
the statement, but what we do know at the
end of the century is that clear-up rates are
not nearly as high as reported in 1903.
Writing in 1999, two authoritative analysts
state “the majority of reported property
crimes do not result in a convicted offender
being charged…Accurate data on charge
rates is generally not available, but most
estimates for property crime charge rates are
no higher than 10 per cent” (Freiberg and
Ross 1999, p. 52).
In 1993 the Australian Bureau of Statistics
published the first national collection of
uniform crime statistics. Prior to that there
were collections of crime statistics in each
State and Territory. These were not good
indicators of actual levels of crime, as what
was included and excluded reflected
changing interests and priorities over time,
as well as inconsistent recording methods.