According to a report last week put out by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, it appears the ACT has the highest level of crimes against the person in Australia. The crime and safety report put the prevalence of assault in the ACT at 6.9 per cent, the highest in Australia. Next was the Northern Territory on 6.3 per cent and the lowest was Victoria on 3.8 per cent.
However, we should be careful about jumping to conclusions. It would be quite wrong to make broad conclusions from the figures that suggest people in the ACT are more likely to be criminal assaulters, or that the police are not doing as good a job as in Victoria or NSW. It is very likely that the ACT figure is not a true reflection of its overall criminal propensity compared to other jurisdictions. There are several reasons for this.
Crime is generally more prevalent in cities than in rural areas or small towns. The ACT has a far higher proportion of city dwellers than any other state or territory. It could well be that on a comparison between, say, Newcastle, Wollongong or Geelong against Canberra, that the prevalence of assault in Canberra was about the same or even lower.
Secondly, the ACT has the highest education level or any jurisdiction and probably has the highest rights-awareness factor. The bureau’s figures were obtained by surveying people about their own experiences. It is probable that ACT people would be more likely to categorise an incident as an assault. The bureau’s method gives a superior result than relying on police figures because not all incidents are reported.
And then the ACT’s age profile is younger than elsewhere and assaults are more prevalent among the young.
It is very often the case that the ACT comes up in statistics as different from other jurisdictions. Age, income, education and urban environment are frequently determinants of other matters. It would not be surprising if this were the result with the crime figures. And little knowledge about crime trends can be gained because earlier surveys posed significantly different questions.