Is the majority of crime in our society violent in nature?
While violent crime may be the most feared form of crime, it is not generally the most prevalent type of crime. It is important to start with how different changes may affect crime trends. Then we will explore what perceptions Australian 's hold of violent crime, before moving on to the prevalence of different crimes in different sections of Australia. Finally, it will be discussed how nationally as Australians we are affected by violent crime.
What affects crime trend statistics
It is not only crime incidents that change. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2002) personal factors, policing resources, police strategies, peoples attitude towards reporting a crime along with crime reporting systems change over time. Due to these changing factors careful attention must be payed when asssessing levels of crime victimisation. It is also important to remember personal crimes are less likely to be reported, with an estimation of two-thirds of assaults going unreported …show more content…
A survey of Social Attitudes (AuSSA) conducted in 2007 was mailed to 20,000 people randomly selected from the Australian electoral roll. 8,133 responded, resulting in 41% response rate (Davis and Dossetor, 2010). One of the questions in this survey assessed perceptions of the level of violence occurring in crime offences. Davis and Dossetor (2010) explain that 96.3% of respondents mistakenly believed violence to be more prevalent, with misconceptions ranging from 23.6% of respondents believing violence to be present in 71-80% of all crime offences and 11.9% of respondants beliving that violence occuring 81-90% of offences. Davis and Dossetor (2010) go on to explain that realistically, actual or threatened violent crimes account for less than 10% of total crime in
While violent crime may be the most feared form of crime, it is not generally the most prevalent type of crime. It is important to start with how different changes may affect crime trends. Then we will explore what perceptions Australian 's hold of violent crime, before moving on to the prevalence of different crimes in different sections of Australia. Finally, it will be discussed how nationally as Australians we are affected by violent crime.
What affects crime trend statistics
It is not only crime incidents that change. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2002) personal factors, policing resources, police strategies, peoples attitude towards reporting a crime along with crime reporting systems change over time. Due to these changing factors careful attention must be payed when asssessing levels of crime victimisation. It is also important to remember personal crimes are less likely to be reported, with an estimation of two-thirds of assaults going unreported …show more content…
A survey of Social Attitudes (AuSSA) conducted in 2007 was mailed to 20,000 people randomly selected from the Australian electoral roll. 8,133 responded, resulting in 41% response rate (Davis and Dossetor, 2010). One of the questions in this survey assessed perceptions of the level of violence occurring in crime offences. Davis and Dossetor (2010) explain that 96.3% of respondents mistakenly believed violence to be more prevalent, with misconceptions ranging from 23.6% of respondents believing violence to be present in 71-80% of all crime offences and 11.9% of respondants beliving that violence occuring 81-90% of offences. Davis and Dossetor (2010) go on to explain that realistically, actual or threatened violent crimes account for less than 10% of total crime in