As Rural Crime Week comes to a close we have seen most of the focus on illegal hunting, livestock theft and firearm safekeeping.
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However, statistically these crimes do not even rate a mention in the police’s own data for the Bega Valley.
In the 12 months to June 2017, malicious damage to property was the most common offence in the region, followed by theft from motor vehicles, assault, fraud and domestic violence related assaults.
Anyone who spends a day in any of our local courts will see methylamphetamine (also known as ice) and alcohol use and addiction play a large role in many arrests and convictions.
One Australian population survey found rates of methylamphetamine use were twice as high among people living in remote areas.
Young people in rural areas are also significantly more likely to have recently used ice than young people in the major cities and regional areas.
Another issue in rural areas, like the Bega Valley, is the number of Indigenous Australians coming in contact with the justice system.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the Indigenous incarceration rate has risen from 14.4 per cent in 1991 to 28 per cent in 2016.
NSW has seen an upward trend in Indigenous incarcerations over the last five years.
One of the reasons given recently by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research for the statewide rise since 2012, is “an increase in the length of time being spent on remand by Indigenous defendants refused bail, in large part because of a growth in court delay in the NSW District Criminal Court”.
The bureau also said the number of Indigenous offenders receiving prison sentences could be reduced by more than 500 a year if half given short prison sentences were instead placed on an Intensive Correction Order or Home Detention.
Perhaps Rural Crime Week could dig a little deeper than cattle rustlers and firearm owners and attempt to tackle why rural people are coming in contact with the law, and what can be done to keep them out of jail – which magistrates often comment in open court is the last resort.
Only once we begin to really tackle these issues will we see rural crime statistics fall, as data shows once people are incarcerated they are not rehabilitated, but become more likely to re-offend.
