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We Have a Strange Situation in Australia. at a Time When People Seem to Be More Worried by Crime, the Research Evidence Suggests Crime Rates Are Not Increasing. How Can We Explain This Apparent Contradiction?

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We have a strange situation in Australia. At a time when people seem to be more worried by crime, the research evidence suggests crime rates are not increasing. How can we explain this apparent contradiction?

In a democratic society such as Australia, crime trends largely influence parliaments and ministries in crime policy management. If the media are found to be reporting an upward trend in crime figures, enough to unease the public, policy makers are put under pressure to increase punishment and change rules relating to procedures of criminal prosecution. Judicial decisions are intended to reflect public opinion; therefore a judge would then feel obliged to hand down harsher sentences (Pfeiffer, Windzio & Kleinmann, 2005). This, in turn, confirms it is imperative to address the substantial difference between the public’s perception of crime rates, and accurate crime statistics. As previous Australian and international research has indicated, a large majority of the public perceives crime rates to be increasing; they also have inaccurate views on the severity of sentencing. “The Australian Public overestimates the proportion of crime that involves violence and underestimates the proportion of charged persons who go on to be convicted and imprisoned” (Roberts & Indermaur, 2009). To help explain this contradiction in Australia, crime statistics have been analyzed and factors that could influence these inaccurate perceptions have been discovered. Two significant factors that influence the perception that crime rates are increasing, is the gender of a person, and the mass media.

Widespread studies have ben conducted in countries all over the world to uncover the real perception people have regarding the rates of crime, compared to factual crime statistics. Individuals use different sources to gather information when forming views about criminal justice

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