Citation

Davis B, Dossetor K. Trends Iss. Crime Crim. Justice 2010; 396.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, Australian Institute of Criminology)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Public concern about crime victimisation is one of a range of factors that policymakers take into account when creating new criminal offences, setting penalties and allocating resources for policing and prosecution. The level of public concern about rising crime can also determine the extent to which people engage in certain daily activities, sometimes restricting behaviour unnecessarily. However, there can be a disjunction between how people perceive the risk of crime victimisation and the actual level of victimisation that occurs in the community. Recently, for example, concern with some crime types has increased, despite an actual decline in crime rates for the offences in question. This study reinforces earlier research into perceptions of crime; that there are substantial misperceptions of crime among the general public, both in terms of the number of incidents and in perceptions of trends in crime. This paper uses statistical modelling based on data taken from the 2007 Australian Survey of Social Attitudes to examine the relationship between gender, age, education and sources of information on crime in the Australian context.