OVERVIEW OF HOUSEHOLD CRIMES ^{Endnote 1}

WHICH HOUSEHOLD CRIMES ARE INCLUDED IN THE SURVEY?

Household crime in the Crime Victimisation Survey refers to crimes, or offences, that were committed with the intention of depriving a person of, or damaging, their personal property.

The types of household crime included in the Crime Victimisation Survey are break-in, attempted break-in, motor vehicle theft, theft of property from a motor vehicle, malicious property damage and other types of theft (Diagram 3). When referring to victims of these types of crime, it is the household as a whole that is considered the victim, rather than a specific individual within the household.

Diagram 3: Types of household crime included in the Crime Victimisation Survey



HOW MANY HOUSEHOLDS EXPERIENCED HOUSEHOLD CRIME IN 2015–16? (Table 1)

In the 12 months prior to interview in 2015–16, of the 9.0 million households in Australia:

• 4.8% of households (434,000) experienced one or more incidents of malicious property damage
• 2.9% of households (264,400) experienced one or more incidents of theft from a motor vehicle
• 0.5% of households (48,600) had one or more motor vehicles stolen.

In the 12 months prior to interview, households were more likely to experience malicious property damage than any other of the selected household crimes and less likely to experience motor vehicle theft.


ENDNOTES

Endnote 1 All comparisons discussed have been tested for statistical significance with a 95% level of confidence that there is a real difference in the two populations being tested. Only data with a relative standard error (RSE) of less than 25% are referred to in the text of this publication and these estimates are considered sufficiently reliable for general use. To determine whether there is a statistical difference between any other two estimates, significance testing should be undertaken. For further information, refer to the Technical Note.