NCJ Number
134888
Date Published
1991
Length
103 pages
Annotation
A 1989 telephone survey of a random sample of 2,012 Australian citizens gathered information on the frequency of victimization for the types of crime studied, victimization risks for different types of respondents, and characteristics of specific crimes during the previous 5 years.
Abstract
The survey covered personal crimes such as robbery, pick pocketing, and assault and household crimes such as burglary and vehicle theft. It also focused on places of occurrence, costs, injuries, and crime reporting to the police. Findings revealed that 156 respondents had experienced vehicle theft in the past 5 years. In addition, 339 had something stolen from a vehicle, 414 had their vehicle damaged, 116 had a bicycle stolen, 43 had been robbed, 278 had some item of personal property stolen, and 219 experienced a non-sexual assault in the past 5 years. In addition, 84 had experienced burglary during 1988, another 197 had experienced burglary in the previous 4 years, and 141 of the 1,100 females experienced some kind of sexual incident during the previous 5 years. Eighty percent of victims of crimes that were reported to the police were satisfied or very satisfied with the police response. The total cost of reported property crimes amounted to $117 to $234 per adult in Australia, with the higher estimate producing a total similar to the total cost of the criminal justice system for 1988-89. Figures, tables, and appendix discussing an analytic issue