Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research > Publications & Evaluations
RCMR2019MAR

Author NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research
Published March 2019
Report Type Recorded Crime Audit
Subject Audits

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Summary

Key findings

  • Across the selected offences, two regional trends and four metropolitan trends would have been less favourable if rejected incidents had been included.
  • NSW Police advise that the majority of rejected incidents are being validly rejected because there is evidence that the crime did not take place. Some incidents are being incorrectly flagged as rejected rather than duplicate. (Note that both rejected and duplicate incidents are excluded from the crime statistics.)
  • However, Police advice is that the majority of domestic violence related assault incidents rejected in the Inner West area in the 12 months to March 2019 were rejected in error as there was insufficient evidence to prove that the assault didn’t take place. Relevant PACs in the Inner West area are being asked to review these incidents and update accordingly.
  • Total rejected incidents increased by 10.1 per cent in the 24 months to March 2019. Overall 2.5 per cent of incidents were rejected in the 12 months to March 2019.
  • Ten offences had upward trends in rejected incidents, including Breach apprehended violence order which increased by 74.6%, from 4.1% to 6.3% of all incidents.
  • Twelve offences had a rejection rate above five per cent: domestic violence related assault (5.5%), non-domestic violence related assault (6.7%), sexual assault (6.4%), abduction and kidnappingi (12.7%), robbery without a weapon (11.8%), robbery with a weapon not a firearm (8.6%), break and enter dwelling (6.4%), motor vehicle theftii (9.1%), steal from dwelling (6.0%), steal from person (11.2%), stock theft (12.5%) and breach Apprehended Violence Order (6.3%).
  • For the selected offences across NSW PACs/PDs, there were eleven uptrends and four downtrends in rejected incidents in the 24 months to March 2019. Four uptrends were in nondomestic violence related assault and three fraud.
  • Sutherland Shire and Tweed/Byron had uptrends in rejected fraud incidents, with high and increasing rejection rates. The rejection rate tripled for domestic violence related assault incidents in Burwood, from 5.6% to 15.5%.
  • Twenty PACs/PDs had high rejection rates for non-domestic violence related assault incidents, with uptrends in rejected incidents in Tweed/Byron. Break and enter dwelling had high rejection rates in 15 PACs/PDs but none had an uptrend.
  • Breach Apprehended Violence Order had high rejection rates in ten PACs/PDs but none showed an uptrend as two had only small increases and eight had too few incidents in the previous 12 months to conduct a trend test.