Australia Yearbook - 2001

Chapter 11—Crime and justice 489
The first Year Book of the Commonwealth of
Australia (covering the years from 1901 to 1907)
had several tables on drunkenness. About 40% of
all convictions in Magistrates’ Courts in the first
years of the century were for drunkenness. From
1901 to 1906 the number of convictions fell from
57,212 to 45,843—though convictions as a
proportion of cases remained constant at around
90%. It can be seen that a great deal of police and
court resources at the beginning of the century
were devoted to drunkenness. So too was a great
deal of statistical endeavour. The Year Books of
the various States all devoted several pages to
drunkenness. The first Commonwealth Year
Book noted:
“The convictions for drunkenness taken by
themselves are not an altogether satisfactory
test of the relative sobriety of the inhabitants
of each State, forasmuch as several important
factors must be taken into consideration. The
age constitution, for example, of the people is
by no means identical in each State, Western
Australia having by far the largest proportion
of adult males. The avocations of the people
affect the result, since persons engaged in
strenuous callings are, on the whole, more
likely to indulge in alcoholic stimulants than
those employed in the less arduous ones. The
distribution of the population is also a factor,
it being obvious that the likelihood of arrest
or summons for drunkenness is greater in the
more densely populated regions, and lastly,
so also is the attitude of the police and public
generally in regard to the offence”
(Commonwealth Year Book 1908, p. 762).
It also pondered on the treatment of
drunkenness as a crime:
“Though the problem of the correct method
of dealing with dipsomania is by no means an
easy one, it seems fairly clear that the present
plan of bringing offenders before magistrates,
and subjecting them to the penalty of
imprisonment or fine, has little deterrent
effect, as the same offenders are constantly
reappearing before the courts. Further, the
casting of an inebriate into prison, and placing
him in his weakened mental state in the
company of professional malefactors,
doubtless tends to swell the ranks of criminals
and certainly tends to lower his self-respect,
and examination of the prison records in New
South Wales some years ago disclosed the fact
that over 40% of the gaol population had
commenced their criminal career with a
charge of drunkenness…With regard to
drunkards, however, Captain Neitenstein,
the Comptroller of Prisoners in New
South Wales, advocates the entire
abandonment of the system of repeated
fine or imprisonment in favour of a
course of hospital treatment”
(Commonwealth Year Book 1908,
p. 762).
Concern with drunkenness did not abate,
and the 1951 Year Book carried tables
showing numbers of cases of drunkenness,
numbers of convictions, and convictions per
10,000 population. The plaintive warning of
the first Year Book (above) seems to have
fallen on deaf ears, as it was repeated almost
word-for-word half a century later in the 1951
Year Book (and presumably annually in the
intervening Year Books!).
Towards the end of the century public
drunkenness has been decriminalised, and
this allows police to devote time to other
priorities. This is not to say that drunkenness
is not a problem. The context has changed.
In the first half of the century drunkenness
was seen as a crime in itself. Today it is seen
as a precipitating factor. Significant numbers
of those charged with assault and other
crimes against the person are affected by
alcohol. At the end of the century there was
concern with the drinking habits of young
people, and binge drinking in particular. In
2000 the Australian Institute of Criminology
completed a monograph entitled Alcohol,
Young Persons and Violence in which
topics addressed included: An indicator
approach to the measurement of
alcohol-related violence; Alcohol and
disorder in the Australian community;
Alcohol use and violent behaviour among
youth: Alcohol and homicide in Australia;
Reducing alcohol- related harm in and
around licensed premises; and many others
(Williams 2000).
At the end of the 20th century, substance
abuse was a matter of considerable public
policy concern. Although people were no
longer arrested and processed for
drunkenness, there was strong evidence of
illicit drug use related to the commission of
property and violence crime. The Australian
Institute of Criminology conducts a national
project entitled Drug Use Monitoring