The Vanishing Criminal: Causes of Decline in Australia's Crime Rate

Description

Two of Australia's leading experts uncover the causes of our crime rate's dramatic decline. In 2000, Australia had the highest rate of burglary, the highest rate of contact crime (assault, sexual assault and robbery) and the second highest rate of motor vehicle theft among the 25 countries included in the international crime victim survey, which takes in the United States, the United Kingdom and most western European countries. Then in 2001, Australian crime statistics began to decline. By 2018, rates of the most common forms of crime had fallen between 40 and 80 percent and were lower than they'd been in twenty or in some cases thirty years. Australia is not the only country to have experienced this social trend. In The Vanishing Criminal Don Weatherburn and Sara Rahman set out to explain the dramatic fall in crime, rigorously but accessibly comparing competing theories against the available evidence. Their conclusions will surprise many and reshape the terms for discussion of these questions well into the future.

Don Weatherburn (Author) Don Weatherburn was director of the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research for thirty years. He is now a professor at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre. Sara Rahman (Author) Sara Rahman is a researcher at the Centre for Education Statistics and Evaluation, working on impact evaluations of education initiatives. Rahman also worked as a researcher at the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research and the Australia and New Zealand School of Government.