MEDIA RELEASE
21 February, 2012	Embargo: 11.30 am (Canberra Time)	18/2012

Most victims of physical and face-to-face threatened assault in 2010–11 felt that alcohol or drugs were a contributing factor in their most recent incident, according to the latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

Victims aged 18 years and over were asked whether they perceived alcohol or other substances to be a contributing factor to their most recent incident. It was estimated that nearly two-thirds (64%) of physical assault victims thought this was the case; as did more than half (57%) of the victims of face-to-face threatened assault.

The majority of both male and female victims of physical assault believed that alcohol or drugs contributed to their most recent incident (71% of males and 56% of females). This was also the case for male victims (61%) and female victims (53%) of face-to-face threatened assault.

The Crime Victimisation Survey also found that victimisation rates for most personal and household crimes have remained stable since 2009–10, with the exception of malicious property damage.

The rate for malicious property damage fell from 9.1% in 2009–10 to 8.5% in 2010–11. An estimated 722,800 households were affected in 2010–11 with 1.1 million incidents nationwide.

In the 12 months prior to the survey it was estimated that 242,400 households were victims of break-ins (2.8% of households), 186,700 households (2.2%) were victims of attempted break-in and 70,200 households (0.8%) had a motor vehicle stolen.

When asked about social disorder problems in their neighbourhood, an estimated 35% (5.8 million) of people aged 18 years and over perceived noisy driving to be a problem and 34% (5.7 million) believed dangerous driving to be a problem. In contrast to this, 7.6% (1.3 million) felt the use or dealing of drugs to be a problem.

An estimated 41% (6.9 million) of people were of the opinion that they had no social disorder issues in their local area.

Further information is available in Crime Victimisation, Australia, 2010–11 (cat. no. 4530.0).


Media Notes:

• Due to differences in mode of data collection and survey questions, data from the 2010–11 survey is only directly comparable with data from the 2008–09 and 2009–10 Crime Victimisation Surveys.
• The Crime Victimisation Survey asked people aged 15 and over whether they experienced a crime in the preceding 12 months for a selected range of personal and household offences (physical assault, threatened assault (including face-to-face and non face-to-face), robbery, break-in, attempted break-in, motor vehicle theft, theft from a motor vehicle, malicious property damage and other theft). Questions about sexual assault were asked of people aged 18 years and over. Data for the contribution of alcohol or any other substance to physical or face-to-face threatened assault are reported for people aged 18 years and over only. People aged 18 years and over were also asked questions relating to perceptions of social disorder in their local area.
• When reporting ABS data the Australian Bureau of Statistics (or ABS) must be attributed as the source.