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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-09-29 Daily Xml
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CRIME STATISTICS

The Hon. R.B. SUCH (Fisher) (12:50): I move:

That this house calls upon the state government to provide readily available and up-to-date crime statistics.

The motion as read indicates two key things: that the statistics should be readily available and up-to-date. Well, that is not the case, sadly, unfortunately. South Australia has an Office of Crime Statistics and Research (sometimes called OCSAR), which was established within the Attorney-General's Department in 1978. However, it is not possible for members of parliament or, indeed, any member of the public, to readily access crime statistics post-2007. That is in spite of OCSAR having a relatively large professional staff: a manager and 13 professionals, including senior researchers, data analysts, evaluation officers and administrators.

If a member wants to access post-2007 crime statistics, they must write to the Attorney-General, the CEO of the Attorney-General's Department or OCSAR's manager to obtain permission to receive these statistics. One of my staff recently sought the post-2007 statistics, but was told they were unavailable because they had not been published yet. When my staff member inquired as to why they had not been published yet, she was told that the statistics were in a PDF document and that takes a long time to produce. My staff member was told to write an email to the manager, seeking access to post-2007 statistics. She persisted and asked, 'If not from OCSAR, where could a person find post-2007 crime statistics?' She was referred to SAPOL annual reports. This is unacceptable.

Before 2007, as I indicated, OCSAR readily provided crime statistics to members of parliament or, indeed, any public person. These statistics were detailed, comprehensive and extremely useful. They covered every imaginable aspect of crime, including crimes against people, and apprehensions for graffiti, arson and property offences. People were told, on inquiry, where the offences occurred—on a bus, train, tram, public or private school, university, etc.—the penalties received, duration of imprisonment and every possible angle of the crime issue. If you look at the SAPOL statistics, their annual report for 2009-10 on page 17, under the heading 'Crime Statistics', explains that:

SAPOL use two methods in presenting crime data: Two Stage and Traditional Formats. The Two Stage Format was developed—

it says—

by SAPOL to provide a clearer picture on the categories of victim reported offences and offences against public order.

A little further on the same page—that is, page 17 of the annual report of 2009-10—it says:

The compilation of the data used in the Two Stage Format varies slightly from the Traditional Format.

In that:

SAPOL does not count some associated offences in this format. For example, when an offence of serious criminal trespass is recorded, any associated offence of theft is excluded from the count.

Retired police and serving police have raised this issue with me. If someone breaks into your house, how many offences are committed? The way they are recorded is important because, clearly, if there is an assault, then that is one offence; if property is stolen, that is another. You can either end up with a very inflated figure or a deflated one.

In comparison to South Australia, in New South Wales they have BOCSAR, which is their bureau of statistics—Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research. It is a statistical and research agency within the New South Wales Department of Attorney General and Justice, established in 1969. The director is Dr Don Weatherburn. It conducts research into crime and criminal justice and evaluates initiatives designed to reduce crime and reoffending.

I think that is a very important role because politicians of all persuasions, as we know, love to get into the law and order issue, particularly at election time. So, you end up with an auction about who can flog people harder or who can hang them more frequently, or some other thing, when what we really want are statistics that are based on fact and that will guide sensible measures, first of all to help reduce offending and to sensibly deal with issues arising from offending.

All of the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research data is available to members of the public. The information is stored in their databases and can be used to answer many questions about crime and justice in New South Wales. It includes information in the databases of crimes reported to police and it includes details such as the type of offence and when and where it is committed.

The information in the database of criminal court appearances include such details as: age, gender, type of offence or offences, the plea, outcome of court appearance and penalty for persons who appear before the courts charged with criminal offences. This is the type of crime statistic that South Australia once produced through the Office of Crime Statistics and Research. So, we have a model, and the government should return to the original model that we had here, which accords more with the practice in New South Wales.

I am not advocating beating the law and order drum. I think that is unhelpful and it ends up distorting public policy because in some cases you get an overreaction, or an inappropriate reaction to offending in the community. But if you do not have the statistics, if you cannot access them, then it is hard to look at trends and emerging areas that need to be tackled in relation to criminal behaviour.

The validity and accuracy of our state police statistics has a bearing on the statistics produced by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The ABS collects crime statistics itself with national crime and safety surveys and it also collects data on crime from the police, criminal courts and corrections agencies in each Australian state and territory, and it does run a quality assurance program to try to ensure that its data is accurate and appropriate.

What I am advocating is that the state government simply gets back to what it used to do through the Office of Crime Statistics and Research and make sure that the statistics are readily available to members of parliament and the community without any attempt to make it difficult to access those statistics.

I am not suggesting that the government or the police have manipulated statistics, I am not suggesting that at all, but it does create a perception in the mind of observers if it is hard to get crime statistics promptly, particularly those post 2007. The immediate question is: why is it difficult to get those statistics? I am not suggesting there has been any malpractice but I think it does lead to a perception in the community, and certainly amongst some MPs, that there is something not quite right in the system.

So, I call on the Attorney, in his program of reform, to have a look at the way statistics are issued and ensure that, for members of parliament, the public and the media, they are readily available without the artificial restrictions and difficulties which currently exist stopping that genuine knowledge being available to the wider community.

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg) (12:58): I rise to support the motion and seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.


[Sitting suspended from 12:59 to 14:00]


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