Australia

Crime

Overall crime rates have remained remarkably stable over time, although they did decrease between 1900 and 1950. Since then, rates of homicide, rape, robbery, assault, and theft have climbed slowly. There are two major sources of information about crime in Australia—official statistics collected by the police, and victimization surveys conducted by government agencies. Official statistics for 1998 reveal the rate of reported crime per 100,000 people as well as a limited amount of information about offenders, victims, and the nature of particular crimes.

For example, there were 1.8 victims of murder or manslaughter per 100,000. This means that in one year there were 333 homicide victims—less than one per day. Unmarried men between the ages of twenty-five and forty-four, the unemployed, and Indigenous people were most at risk of becoming victims of homicide. Over the last ten years, 87 percent of homicide offenders have been male. While the police described over 75 percent of offenders as white, Asian offenders were slightly overrepresented, and Indigenous Australians vastly overrepresented, among known homicide offenders. Eighty percent of homicides occurred between people who were known to each other. Sixteen percent of homicides resulted from the use of a firearm, and 50 percent were committed with another kind of weapon, often a knife. The vast majority of homicides −95 percent—involved only one fatality. On average, Australia suffers only one mass murder per year (involving four or more victims). One particularly infamous shooting spree occurred on April 28, 1996, when thirty-five men, women, and children were killed by a gunman at Port Arthur in Tasmania. Only nine serial killers have been discovered since 1960. Between 1989 and 1992, Ivan Milat murdered seven young backpackers. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1994.

For every 100,000 people, there were also 709 recorded victims of assault and 77 victims of sexual assault. Forty percent of the assaults took place in a home and 23 percent on streets or footpaths. Women were most at risk of physical and sexual assault in homes, while men were more likely to be assaulted elsewhere. Overall, men were more likely to be assaulted and far less likely to be sexually assaulted than women.

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