Household crime dropping in NSW
A report just published has shown household crime in NSW has dropped from 11.4% in 2001 down to 6.8% in the year to April 2006, and more NSW residents believe there are no problems from crime or people creating a public nuisance in their neighbourhood.
In April 2006, 53% of people did not perceive any problems from crime or public nuisance in their neighbourhood, an increase on the 52% recorded in 2004 and 45% recorded five years earlier (2001) according to recently released figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
The proportion of persons aged 15 years and over who experienced personal crimes of robbery, assault or sexual assault in the 12 months prior to April 2006, remained relatively unchanged. Around 4.2% of persons were victims of these personal crimes in 2006, compared to 4.5% in 2004. This 2004 victimisation rate was unchanged from 2003 but was significantly lower than the 2001 rate of 5.1%.
For the victims of all the selected household and personal crimes, reporting rates of those individual offences to the police were relatively unchanged compared to both the 2004 and 2003 reporting rates. In 2006 the proportion of victims reporting the most recent incident to the police were: break and enter (72%), robbery (41%) and assault (33%).
