Journal ArticleDOI
Violent Crime in Australia: Patterns and Politics
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In this article, the authors examine the evidence regarding the nature of violent crime in Australia and suggest that violence is not increasing and the risks of violence are not equally spread, and the effects of these misperceptions on public opinion, political strategy and crime policy.Abstract:
This paper examines the evidence regarding the nature of violent crime in Australia. Although it is often assumed that violence is increasing and that violence represents an equal risk to all citizens, the evidence does not support these assumptions. A closer look at the data that is available suggests that violence is not increasing and the risks of violence are not equally spread. The effects of these misperceptions on public opinion, political strategy and crime policy is discussed. It is argued that the interplay between information and policy is complex. For example, the interests and proclivities of the public in seeing crime in a sensationalised way can not be dismissed. Further, the usefulness of crime and punishment to politicians looking for grand symbols is central to the politics of violence. It is argued that those responsible for crime policy can be encouraged to pursue more effective directions if policies are subjected to robust evaluations which are designed to test for outcomes in terms ...read more
Citations
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Journal Article
Trends in violent crime
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated the role of self-reported victimisation and reporting to police in the increase in recorded assaults and sexual assaults in the past ten years by over 40% and 20% respectively.
Sentencing trends for violent offenders in Australia
TL;DR: In this article, the authors identify factors which influence sentencing trends for violent offenders in Australia and examine the relationship between the incidence of violent crime and the penalties imposed; whether there are any specific factors with respect to Indigenous offenders; and the policy and research implications of the findings.
Journal ArticleDOI
Law and Order Blues
TL;DR: This article argued that Australian law and order policy is irrational because it usually lacks any clear rationale, is rarely subjected to any effectiveness or cost-effectiveness evaluation, frequently ignores the possibility of unintended side-effects and is sometimes founded on a misdiagnosis of the crime problem that prompts it.
Journal ArticleDOI
Shadow Boxing with an Imaginary Enemy - a Response to 'Law and Order Blues'
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that Weatherburn's silence on sexual assault reflects a more widespread unwillingness to acknowledge the methodological problems that arise in the measurement of crime because such problems severely limit the extent to which confident assertions can be made about prevalence and trends.
References
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Book ChapterDOI
Social Change and Crime Rate Trends: A Routine Activity Approach
Lawrence E. Cohen,Marcus Felson +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, a "routine activity approach" is presented for analyzing crime rate trends and cycles. But rather than emphasizing the characteristics of offenders, with this approach, the authors concentrate upon the circumstances in which they carry out predatory criminal acts, and hypothesize that the dispersion of activities away from households and families increases the opportunity for crime and thus generates higher crime rates.
Book
Making Crime Pay: Law and Order in Contemporary American Politics
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss the role of law and order in contemporary American political culture and discuss the public agenda of crime and drugs in the news and the need to institutionalize the crime problem.
Book
Public opinion, crime, and criminal justice
TL;DR: The fifth edition of the Oxford Handbook of Criminology as mentioned in this paper has been substantially revised and updated so that it covers topics being taught at undergraduate level and encapsulating the latest developments in the academic and practical spheres of criminology, including reflections on the August 2011 riots.
Journal ArticleDOI
Three strikes and you are out, but why? The psychology of public support for punishing rule breakers.
Tom R. Tyler,Robert J. Boeckmann +1 more
TL;DR: This article examined why the public supports the punishment of rule breakers and found that the source of people's concerns lies primarily in their evaluations of social conditions, including the decline in morality and discipline within the family and increases in the diversity of society.
Journal ArticleDOI
Age structure and crime: symmetry versus asymmetry and the projection of crime rates through the 1990s
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine age distributions of arrests for murder and motor vehicle theft and then specify and estimate structural-equation models of the time trajectories in annual rates of these crimes for the post-World War II period.