Page 2370 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 16 September 1992
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this Assembly by the Attorney-General himself. The report is, frankly, a slap in the face for Labor's "don't worry, be happy" attitude towards crime in this community. The Director of Public Prosecutions, Mr Crispin, says in his 1991-92 annual report:
Historically, the ACT has enjoyed a low crime rate compared to other Australian jurisdictions and, even now, can be regarded as a fortunate community in many respects. However, recent trends offer obvious cause for concern and there is no reason to imagine that they will not be sustained at least for some time.
Mr Crispin, who has been cited with authority and approval in other respects in this place from time to time, goes on to talk about the level of crime and the problem with increasing crime rates. He says on page 4 of his report - quite up-front, quite early in the report:
The most disturbing aspect of the year was the continued escalation in the crime rate.
Notice the words there - "the continued escalation in the crime rate". He is not fudging this. He is not talking about an increase in the rate of prosecutions; he is not talking about an increase in the trend in particular areas. He is talking about the continued escalation in the crime rate - not ambiguous, no pulled punches, not anything that the Government can take comfort from. He goes on to say:
The number of charges laid under the Crimes Act ... increased by a further 36% to 5,523. The figure for 1988/89 was 2,854. Consequently this year's figure represents an increase of 93.5% in just three years.
That figure is shameful; it is utterly shameful. How any government could fail to come back into this Assembly and announce that it was going to take drastic measures to deal with this serious problem is beyond me. Mr Crispin goes on to say:
The increase in drug charges has been even more dramatic. During the same period the figures have risen from 246 -
that is 1988-89 we are talking about there -
to 546, an increase of 122%. Between 1988 and 1991 the ACT population increased by only 6.5% and it is obvious that such huge increases in the number of prosecutions cannot be explained by normal demographic changes.
The Minister has been quick to scramble for excuses on this matter. His excuse has been, "The figures that the DPP is talking about here are not increases in crime rates; they are increases in prosecution rates. What could be the case is that our ACT police are getting wonderfully more efficient and are able to sustain greatly improved levels of prosecution and apprehension, and that results in this great upsurge in figures by the DPP in his report". The fact of life is that you cannot gloss over those figures in that fashion. You simply cannot explain them in that way. Indeed, the DPP himself goes on to discount that possibility. He says:
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