13 December 2004
Property Crime and Assaults Drop
 |
Peter Toyne MLA
Minister for Justice
Related
Links
This page
is maintained by the
Office of the Chief Minister
The number of assaults has dropped by 8 per cent over the past 12 months and property crime continues to fall.
The total number of offences against the person in the NT was down eight percent or 383 less offences.
There were 4427 less recorded property offences in the Northern Territory in the year to September 2004 compared to the figure for the previous twelve months.
This represents an 18 per cent reduction in property crime over the twelve month period.
Justice Minister Dr Peter Toyne said the latest figures sustain a consistent reduction in property crime since the statistics started more than 2 years ago.
“It’s a significant turnaround, we have 4427 less offences over the past 12 months, that’s 4427 less people who have had property damaged or stolen,” Dr Toyne said.
“Our targeted programs are working, police and the community are working to identify trouble spots and then fix them.
“The fall in assaults is also an encouraging sign, but we need to, and will build on our initiatives to combat sexual assaults,” Dr Toyne said.
In a breakdown of the figures, the yearly comparison shows sexual assaults, while trending downwards over the past twelve months, were up by one percent (2 additional offences).
This may be due in part to an increase in reporting rates following the push by the Department of Family and Community Services to raise awareness of the problem and dedicate more resources to it.
An extra $53 million has been allocated to child protection in the Northern Territory over the next 5 years.
Dr Toyne said work was also continuing on addressing the rate of sexual offences through the Sexual Assault Task Force.
“The task force has been investigating ways of reducing the level of sexual offences across the NT,’’ he said.
The figures are from the Quarterly Crime and Justice Statistics compiled by the Office of Crime Prevention.
Year to Year comparisons:
This data compares figures from one 12 month period to the next. Among the other key findings comparing the total number of offences in the 12 months to September 04 to the total number of offences in the 12 months to September 03:
- assaults decreased by 8% (337 less offences)
- house break-ins decreased by 24% (667 less offences)
- commercial break-ins decreased by 20% (396 less offences)
- property damage incidents decreased by 21% (1911 less offences)
- motor vehicle theft and related offences decreased by 18% (403 less offences)
Quarter to Quarter comparisons:
Quarterly comparisons are the figures from the June 04 quarter (April/May/June) compared to the figures from the September 04 quarter (July/August/September). Key findings include:
- total number of offences against the person were down by 1% (10 less offences)
- assaults decreased 1% (7 less offences)
- sexual assaults up by 18% (13 more offences)
- robberies decreased 60% (12 less offences)
- total number of property offences were down 11% (542 less offences)
- house break-ins decreased 27% (148 less offences)
- commercial break-ins decreased 21% (74 less offences)
- property damage offences decreased 10% (157 less offences)
Trends:
Trends are detected when there is a statistically significant upward or downward movement in recorded crime levels of the last 12 months’ data. A downward trend was recorded for assault, sexual assault and house break-ins. Trends were not identified for other offences across the Territory.
September Quarter 2004 Crime and Justice Statistics and Regional Fact Sheets are available online at www.crimeprevention.nt.gov.au
NOTE:
- The above statistics are a measure of recorded crime across the Territory.
- The data is collected from the Police Real-time On-line Management Information System.
- Nationally it is recognised that there are varying levels of un-reported crime in our community but that recorded crime is the best available measure of changes in the level of crime in a community.
- Statistics in the Territory can be highly volatile, with large swings from one period or another. This is particularly the case for regional centres where small populations and changes in operational or administrative procedures may heavily influence statistics.