David Biles

Overview of Findings from the First Australian National Crime Victims Survey

During 1975 the Australian Bureau of Statistics conducted 18,694 interviews in randomly selected households throughout Australia to elicit information about whether respondents had been victims of crime during the previous 12 months. Earlier surveys by Wilson and Brown (1973) and Congalton and Najman (1974) pale into insignificance when compared with the monumental size of the sample in the Bureau of Statistics study.

Crime Victims and the Police

Over half of all the crimes which occur in Australia are not reported to the police. For various reasons the victims do not make any official complaint, and it is of considerable interest to psychologists as well as to criminal justice personnel to examine these reasons in detail. A recent survey conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics makes it possible to do this. This survey established that the most common reason for non-reporting was that the victims considered that the offence was ‘too trivial’, but a large number of victims expressed the view that ‘the police could not do anything about it’. Marked differences in the reasons for non-reporting were found for different types of crime, and some differences were also found according to the sex, age, educational attainment and marital status of the victims. A comparison with American reasons for non-reporting showed considerable similarity, but American victims are more inclined than Australians to say that the ‘police could not do anything about it’ and are less inclined to say that the offence was ‘too trivial’. American victims are more likely to report offences to persons other than police. This paper reports some data from the national crime victimisation survey conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 1975. Earlier surveys of crime victimisation in Australia by Wilson and Brown (1973) and Congalton and Najman (1974) were restricted to specific regions and to relatively small samples, but both revealed substantial under-reporting of crime. This survey covered 18,694 persons throughout the whole of the country. The specific concern of this paper is with the reasons victims give for not reporting to the police the fact that they have been victimised. Most crimes are not reported to the police. If citizens invariably reported all serious victimisations, the costs of maintaining police forces would be noticeably higher than at present; whether or not victims should be encouraged to make greater use of their police in this way can only be answered on the basis of an analysis of the reasons why they refrain from doing so. THE SAMPLE Dwellings for inclusion in the area probability sample were selected from all parts of Australia excluding the Northern Territory, rural regions and locations with populations of fewer than 500 people. Of the 10,500 dwelling sites originally selected, 9,200 contained effective households of which 8,414 provided data for the survey. These households contained 18,694 persons aged 15 years and over, each of whom supplied some data. The household response rate was 91.5 per cent. 1. The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance given to the Australian Institute of Criminology by the staff of the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Deaths in private and public prisons in australia: a comparative analysis

Public opinion in Australia has been divided on the question of whether private prisons are welcome and one of the issues in dispute has been the question of whether or not private prisons are associated with proportionately more or fewer deaths of prisoners, particularly suicides, than public prisons. The available evidence is examined, and when the number of deaths, or suicides, per 1000 prisoner years served for all private and public prisons are calculated it is found that the rate for all deaths is significantly lower in private prisons at the 0.05 level of confidence. However, the difference in the suicide rates is not statistically significant.The lower overall death rate is particularly surprising as private prisons in Australia hold proportionately more unconvicted remandees,who are at higher risk, than public prisons. A close examination of the data for three relatively new remand and reception prisons, two private and one public, shows that all have much higher rates for both all deaths and for suicides than the national averages. This is an updated and expanded version of a paper by the same authors published by the Australian Institute of Criminology in June 1999. That paper was admitted into evidence at a coronial inquiry that was held into five deaths that occurred in the Port Phillip Prison in Victoria. Address for correspondence: D. Biles, 25 Kidston Cres, Curtin ACT 2605, Australia.

Aboriginal and non-aboriginal deaths in custody*

The establishment of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody prompted a number of questions about the incidence of non-Aboriginal as well as Aboriginal deaths in both police custody and prisons. And examination of all such deaths from 1980 to 1988 shows that there were four times as many non-Aboriginal deaths as Aboriginal deaths, but, based on their numbers in the general community, Aborigines were 23 times more likely to die in custody than were non-Aborigines. About two-thirds of the black deaths occurred in police custody and two-thirds of the white deaths occurred in prisons. Suicide or self-inflicted harm was the most common reported cause of death for non-Aborigines, but death by natural causes was more frequently reported among Aborigines. The most serious offence leading either to detention or imprisonment for all the deceased persons revealed only small differences between the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal groups, but those who died in prison were generally more serious offenders than those who died in police custody. Proportionately more of the Aboriginal deaths occurred in hospitals than was the case for non-Aborigines. A dramatic and unexpectedly high number of custodial deaths occurred in 1987, and the possible explanations for this are explored. It is suggested that the findings of this study relate to the over-representation of Aborigines in custody, the need for improved health programs for Aborigines, and the need for permanent monitoring on a national basis of all deaths in custody.

Who Gets Locked Up? The Australian Police Custody Survey*

During August 1988 the National Police Custody Survey was conducted: data were collected on each occasion on which a person was held in a police cell anywhere in Australia. The survey was undertaken to provide information on the size and composition of the police cell population to assist in interpreting data on Aboriginal deaths in custody. A total of 28,566 incidents of police custody occurred during. the month, involving approximately 23,877 separate individuals. Aboriginal people made up almost 29% of the total; having a custody rate 27 times that of non–Aboriginal people. Substantial differences existed between the eight States and Territories in custody rates and on other variables. Public drunkenness was the most frequent reason for custody, accounting for 35% of cases, and the median length of time in the cells was 5.9 hours. It is concluded that the survey data are reasonably representative of the decade and that the survey should be repeated at regular intervals.

Crime Victimisation Rates in Australian Cities

Until now inter-city comparisons of Australian crime rates have not been possible since: (a) Definitions of crime categories between States have not always been comparable. (b) Rates for reporting crime to the police vary from State to State, and there are variations both within and between police forces in the diligence with which victims are sought out and their victimisation officially recorded. (c) States have not generally recorded crime rates by city. All of these problems of police statistics are avoided in the present analysis. However, we shall now see that there are problems of other kinds which plague victimisation surveys.

Reflections on a long career in criminology

On the occasion of receiving the Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology Distinguished Criminologist Award, David Biles reflects on his long career in criminology and a number of criminal justice agencies. He reviews the establishment of the ANZSOC in 1967, suggesting that it was both premature and serendipitous. He notes particularly the central role of Allen Bartholomew at that time and for the next 13 years. He comments on the changing nature of the membership of ANZSOC and regrets the intellectual separation of academic criminologists and criminal justice professionals that has (perhaps unavoidably) developed. He offers some comments on the membership of the Society and its journal, and suggests a number of issues that he believes deserve more attention and research.

The Use of Imprisonment in Asia and the Pacific: A Statistical Summary

Abstract In recent years, as part of the preparations for the annual Asian and Pacific Conference of Correctional Administrators, basic statistics have been collected from each nation in the region and compiled for circulation at the conference itself. Data collected for the 14th conference that was held in Darwin in September 1994 are summarized in this paper. These data include the numbers of male and female prisoners, and the imprisonment rates, for 26 nations in the region. Wide differences in these rates are noted. For a slightly smaller number of nations, data are also presented relating to the numbers of remandees, or unconvicted prisoners, the numbers of offenders serving probation and parole orders as well as juveniles in detention.

Family Size and Birth Order of Young Offenders

OVER a 12-year-period four independent surveys have been conducted in the Australian State of Victoria which examined family size and place in family of young offenders formally dealt with by the police. All of these surveys provided support for the proposition that young offenders tend to come from large families and were also more likely to be middle children rather than the oldest or the youngest in the family. The exercise of police discretion which results in some young offenders not being formally dealt with, and thus not being included in these surveys, does not affect the

The Mental Health of the Victims of Crime

THIS paper reports briefly on some results from the Crime -*Victims Survey conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 1975. Based on a sample of 18,694 persons throughout the nation it constitutes one of the largest social surveys ever conducted in this country. The interview schedule used in the survey comprised 285 items, four of which were specifically directed to the physical or mental health of the respondents. These were: the number of visits to a medical practitioner in the previous month’ a self-rating of physical health as good, fair, or poor; the number of visits to professional or other expert persons for nervous or mental health problems in the previous month; and a self-rating of nervous or mental condition as good, fair, or poor. The first two variables were not consistently predictive of crime victimisation rates. People who felt that they were in poor physical health and visited their doctor very frequently tended by and large to have neither a higher nor a lower probability of becoming victims of crime. We shall see that the two mental health variables, however, were among those few variables which were of some predictive value.