Crime victimisation in Australia : key results of the 2004 International Crime Victimisation Survey

Holly Johnson
ISBN 0 642 53881 6 ; ISSN 1326-6004
Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology: 2005
(Research and public policy series, no. 64)

Executive summary

Crime victimisation surveys form an important complement to administrative data available through the police and other criminal justice agencies. The Australian Government provided funding to join in the fifth cycle of the International Crime Victimisation Survey (ICVS) in order to obtain up-to-date information about experiences and perceptions of crime from the perspective of citizens. The ICVS is an international project involving approximately 60 countries and coordinated through the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, and Australia has participated in all but one of the previous four cycles. This publication presents key results of the Australian component of the 2004 survey.

The results of the 2004 ICVS suggest that, compared with the 2000 ICVS, rates of crime victimisation have declined in Australia. Fifty-two per cent of Australians had experienced at least one incident of crime during the five years prior to the 2004 survey, down from 55 per cent in 2000. Over the one-year period preceding each survey 24 per cent of the population had experienced at least one incident of crime in 2000 and this dropped to 17 per cent in 2004. This is consistent with police recorded statistics which also show recent decreases in rates of property theft and burglary (AIC 2004). In addition, results provide an up-to-date picture of the risk factors associated with personal and household crime, the level of repeat victimisation, public perceptions of crime and safety, rates at which victims report crimes to the police, and citizen engagement in crime prevention activities. A number of implications emerge from these results for policy-makers and practitioners.

Risk of personal crime

Personal crimes include assaults and threats, robbery and personal theft. Twenty-nine per cent of respondents experienced one or more incidents of personal crime over the five-year period and nine per cent during the previous year. Assaults and threats and personal theft were more frequent than robbery. The likelihood of being a victim of personal crime was higher for individuals who had the following characteristics:

• were unmarried;
• had relatively higher income;
• resided at the current postcode for less than one year;
• were unemployed; or
• had an active lifestyle outside the home in the evenings.

These factors also increased the likelihood of being an assault/threat victim. In addition to these factors, Indigenous people and those speaking only English at home had a greater likelihood of assaults and threats.

Risk of household crime

Household crimes include burglary, attempted burglary, motor vehicle theft, theft from motor vehicles, motorcycle theft and bicycle theft. A total of 39 per cent of all households experienced at least one of these crime types during the five-year period preceding the 2004 ICVS, and 11 per cent were victims of household crime during 2003. The most frequent household crimes were theft from motor vehicles, burglary and attempted burglary.

The likelihood of being a victim of household crime was increased when the household:

• had a higher income; and
• resided at the current postcode for less than one year.

Repeat victimisation

Repeat victimisation is an important area of study because incidents of crime repeated against the same victims, or committed by the same offenders, contribute substantially to the overall crime rate. The ICVS found that:

• 45 per cent of all those victimised over the five-year period experienced more than one different type of crime;
• within crime types, many victims also reported multiple victimisations: 68 per cent of all victims reported one incident of crime, 19 per cent reported two incidents, and 13 per cent reported three or more separate incidents during the one-year period; and
• the crime most likely to be experienced three or more times was assault or threat: 19 per cent of victims reported experiencing three or more assaults or threats within one year.

Being male was the only socio-demographic characteristic that increased the likelihood of being a repeat victim of personal crime. None of the characteristics tested for, including income, time at postcode, language spoken at home and Indigenous status, predicted repeat household victimisation. This lends support to research that has found that the single best predictor of personal victimisation is previous victimisation (Pease 1998).

Perceptions of personal safety

The majority of Australians feel safe in their local environment: 72 per cent reported feeling safe or very safe while walking alone in their area after dark. Less than ten per cent felt it was very likely their homes would be burglarised in the coming year. However, certain segments of the population express higher levels of fear compared with others:

• women were more than twice as likely as men to say they feel a bit unsafe and four times as likely to say they feel very unsafe walking alone in the local area after dark;
• women were about four times as likely as men to say they feel very unsafe while waiting for or using public transportation; and
• feeling unsafe is also associated with being younger, speaking a language other than English at home, Indigenous status, and being the victim of a crime.

There was a decline in the percentage of Australians feeling unsafe since the last ICVS in 2000. This applied to both women and men.

Reporting to police

The percentage of crimes reported to the police ranges from 94 per cent of motor vehicle thefts to 37 per cent of assault/threats. There is also variation in reporting rates by personal and household characteristics of victims. With respect to assaults and threats, respondents with the following characteristics were more likely to report such incidents to the police:

• women;
• those aged 25 or older;
• those living in households with lower income;
• Indigenous persons; and
• incidents involving physical attacks, physical injury, or three or more offenders.

With respect to burglary, persons who reported the incident were more likely to have the following characteristics:

• higher income;
• resided at the current postcode for a year or more; and
• experienced substantial property loss.

The most common reason for failure to report both assault/threats and burglary was that the incident was not considered serious enough to involve the police. However, substantial proportions of some types of assault/threats were not reported due to a fear of retaliation on the part of the offender. For example the following groups gave this reason for not reporting assaults or threats:

• women assaulted or threatened by intimate partners (28%);
• victims who were physically injured (10%); and
• incidents involving weapons (8%).

Among those who reported to the police, a majority - 74 per cent of burglary victims and 65 per cent of victims of assaults or threats - were satisfied with the way police dealt with the matter. Those with lower levels of satisfaction included younger victims, those who speak a language other than English at home, and Indigenous persons.

Crime prevention activities

Overall, 96 per cent of households participating in the ICVS undertook at least one measure to protect themselves from crime. Households who employed a range of crime prevention strategies were more likely to have the following characteristics:

• higher income;
• longer residential stability;
• only English spoken at home; and
• had been a victim of crime in the previous five years.

Policy implications

Police and communities each have a role to play in reducing crime, and crime victimisation surveys can assist in very practical ways. For example:

1. Crime prevention

Crime prevention programs that target high-risk people or locations have been found to be more cost-effective than activities that are broadly aimed at the general population. In developing more effective crime prevention programs, police and communities have benefited from knowledge provided through victimisation surveys about the correlates of victimisation, and about who is at risk and under what circumstances (see ACT 2004).

This knowledge can help target prevention programs to those at higher risk by modifying behaviours, enacting changes to environmental design, or by identifying where social programs are needed for high-risk people. Cost is a major impediment to engagement in many prevention measures. Efforts need to be made in lower income neighbourhoods to introduce and raise the uptake of prevention activities that do not entail a financial cost.

2. Repeat victimisation

With the knowledge that victimisation is an important predictor of future victimisation, police have a critical role in preventing the recurrence of crimes by helping citizens identify and eliminate vulnerabilities that can lead to a repeat experience. By reducing repeat victimisation, a greater impact can be made on the crime problem.

3. Unreported crime

Some incidents that do not come to the attention of police involve substantial harm to victims but they decide not to involve the police for personal reasons. In one fifth of partner assaults not reported to police the victim feared retaliation by the offender. An awareness of this can help police and support services reach out to reluctant victims to prevent a repeat of the crime.

4. Fear for personal safety

Survey results tell us that perceptions of safety are linked to personal vulnerability factors associated with:

• being female, young and living in disadvantaged neighbourhoods;
• belonging to a minority group who speaks a language other than English at home; and
• experiences of crime victimisation.

Communities can take this further by working with residents in the local area to conduct safety audits to identify sources of fear that can be addressed. This could require alterations to the built environment to improve safety, reduce fear and increase citizen interaction. Or, it may require working to identify and reduce social or physical disorder in the local environment. The threats that lie behind expressions of fear need to be targeted in order to improve the quality of life for large numbers of residents.

Where to from here?

Over the coming year, the results for Australia will be put into international context when the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime combines the results of countries that participated in the 2004 ICVS. In addition, the Australian Institute of Criminology will be analysing the results of the ICVS in greater depth, investigating such topics as fraud and other problems experienced on the internet, and experiences of crime in selected migrant communities.