Revictimisation : reducing the heat on hot victims

Preventing crime and preventing repeat victimisation are priority issues for the criminal justice system in 1999. Numerous research studies have shown that a small minority of offenders is responsible for a large proportion of all offences recorded by the police and, further, that a minority of victims experiences the majority of crime. It is well known that crime incidents are not uniformly distributed across geographic areas. Some neighbourhoods experience more violent crimes than others, and understanding this dynamic is valuable in formulating crime prevention and law enforcement strategies. The Australian Institute of Criminology’s Research and Public Policy Series no. 15, Repeat Victimisation in Australia by Satyanshu Mukherjee and Carlos Carcach, showed that over half of all property crimes (e.g. break and enter, attempted break and enter and motor vehicle theft) occurred in just over a quarter of all households. Households that experienced three or more incidents (10 per cent of all victim households) during the year accounted for 25 per cent of all incidents. The same study showed that about two-thirds of personal crimes (assault, sexual assault and robbery) are experienced by 41 per cent of victims. It also made the point that if, as a crime prevention measure, we wish to target 1000 randomly selected unvictimised households, we may on an average prevent 83 household crimes; but if we select 1000 previously victimised households, we may be able to prevent 286 household crimes. Australian research complements international research on repeat victimisation and the paper reproduced here, written by two leading British researchers, was originally published for the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), Washington DC. The Australian Institute of Criminology is pleased to be able to bring this type of international work to the attention of Australian readers, and sees great value in cross-national fertilisation.