A Contrast in Crime

Two contrasting stories about crime caught my eye today.

In the Times Online today:

A ten-year-boy considered so out of control that he was banned from a school for badly behaved children has become one of the youngest with an antisocial behaviour order.

Lewis Green, who has three criminal convictions, loves to get drunk, and smoke cigarettes and cannabis, and will steal from his own family to fund his various habits.

He has terrorised neighbours in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, where he has threatened other children with knives, stolen bicycles, shouted obscenities at pensioners and abused community support officers sent to impose order.

Meanwhile a Productivity Commission report here in Australia says:

NEVER mind the scaremongering, Australians are feeling increasingly relaxed and comfortable in their neighbourhoods, Productivity Commission figures suggest.

The proportion of Australians who believe physical assault to be a problem in their neighbourhood has plummeted from 56.5 per cent in 2003-04 to 38.6 per cent in 2005-06, according to the commission's 2007 report on government services.

The proportion of Australians who believe housebreaking to be a problem locally has steadily declined from 74 per cent in 2003-04 to 60.6 per cent in 2005-06. And only 57.1 per cent of Australians in 2005-06 regard illegal drugs as a problem in their neighbourhood, compared to 73.1 per cent in 2003-04.

Obviously, our car number plates are right. Victoria, the place to be!