Australians Feeling Safer in the Neighbourhood
Despite the headline Australian gang crime – especially in Melbourne in recent years – most Australians today feel safer in their own neighbourhoods with concern about physical assault dropping from 56.5% in 2003-04 to 38.6% in 2005-06.
According to Productivity Commission research the proportion of Australians who believe housebreaking to be a problem has dropped from 74% in 2003-04 to 60.6% in 2005-06. Only 57.1% regarded illegal drugs as a problem in their neighbourhood in 2005-06 compared to 73.1% in 2003-04.
However, while Australians feel safer in their own immediate surrounds the figures suggested that they regard the community at large – especially on public transport – as dangerous. Nationally only 23.4% of people in 2005-06 felt safe travelling on public transport after dark, marginally down on the 24.3% in 2003-04.
The director of the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, Don Weatherburn, said the different perceptions of local crime and statewide crime could be explained by the different sources of people’s information. He said that “people judge the prevalence
of crime outside their neighbourhoods by newspapers and television, and judge what is going on with their crime in their neighbourhood more often by what they hear from neighbours, friends, and relatives”.
Dr.Weatherburn told The Age that “those kinds of programs (TV and tabloid papers) keep on assuring us that crime is more serious, more frequent, and more violent. But if you’re living in a neighbourhood and your house hasn’t been broken into for five years and your neighbour hasn’t had his house broken into for five years or lost a car, that’s a bit of a turnaround”.
