Engage Poll: Crime not in 'crisis', not just youth, not a vote winner

This week’s poll on crime was very enlightening to the complexity and diversity of people’s perceptions on crime, and their understanding of the political manipulation of the crime issue.

An acceptable but smallish sample of 312 people participated in our poll between April 2 and April 6, 93% of them within the New England electorate, with a good location, gender, and age balance. The trend towards around half wanting Labor to win the election continues for the sixth week in a row.

We asked some additional questions this week to test how much variability there is the electorate, and whether there is much likelihood of voters changing their minds in the next couple of weeks. 79% had their votes pretty well locked in – subject to any last minute candidate surprises being announced on Friday of course.

Respondents very clearly understood that crime is not usually a federal issue, but what they interpreted or thought about when discussing crime in a political context varied widely. Some interpreted it as crime committed by politicians, others interpreted it as a political tactic without much basis.

“I don’t think crime or even rural and regional youth crime is the massive problem it has been hyped into by the media. I feel saddened when I see social media posts hoping the young offenders die and wanting younger and younger offenders to be put into prison for the sake of property. It feels awful to see people wanting younger people – young people who have also disproportionally been dealt compounding levels of disability and socio-economic and developmental adversity – to be further harmed for the sake of property.”
40-44 year old female from Tamworth

“The shameful and ignorant use of ‘crime’ to mislead the public into ignoring the facts.”
80+ year old female in Armidale

“That crime is a political football tossed around by ignorant and/or overly privileged individuals who use it as a fear mongering tactic to drum up outrage on social media.”
40-44 year old female from Armidale

And those who have been clearly impacted by said political rhetoric were easily spotted by their uniformity of language, blaming parents for not bringing up kids right and judges for letting them ‘back out’ to reoffend, but even they had some variation in how they interpreted and understood the situation.

“Absolutely disgraceful… seems most parents aren’t interested in bringing up their children with respect and compassion for the community…it’s a very selfish, entitled attitude now. Parents of delinquent children should be forced to pay compensation to the victims!!!”
70-74 year old female from Armidale

“Offenders, especially those under 18 who are not punished for their crimes and let out continually to reoffend. This terrifies me as they are everywhere laughing at the honest people. Our impotent Police force that can do nothing just exacerbates the issue.”
65-69 year old female from Tamworth

“Parents should take more responsibility for the actions of their children. Our society has become too soft.”
70-74 year old male from Inverell

Most interestingly, these groups did not break along party lines. There were people intending to vote Labor, National and minor parties on both sides of the beat up/crisis crime split.

Fear of crime was evenly split across most of the concern levels with very few people being ‘not at all concerned’, however women were the most likely to be ‘extremely concerned’.

Trust of police was weaker than expected – most studies, regardless of question phrasing or survey design, find trust, confidence or respect for the police averages between two thirds and three quarters of people. Only 14.4% of our respondents always trust the police, and the bulk of respondents – 57.2% – trusted the police ‘most of the time’. Almost 1 in 10 rarely or never trusted police. The ‘other’ responses mostly detailed specific examples in their experience of local police doing the wrong thing.

When asked directly about the ‘crime crisis’, less than a quarter believed these claims to be ‘very accurate’.

Respondents were not denying crime was a problem in the community, but clearly felt the political rhetoric had gone too far, that the ‘crisis’ was very localised, or that the issue was perceived differently in different areas. Some also hadn’t heard the claims.

“The situation is worse than is being reported with people feeling there is now no point in reporting crimes and fear of retribution and retaliation if reported.”
65-69 year old female from Tamworth

“Crime happens everywhere but people in cities are less concerned due to much crime being concentrated in certain areas. In the regions residential areas are more varied – there are fewer enclaves of wealthier and poorer suburbs. Crimes are likely to happen just around the corner. Everyone gossips and exaggerates. The hysteria is palpable. And, of course, there are crimes of every kind, committed by all kinds of people.”
75-79 year old female from Armidale

“Everything seems to be a ‘crisis’ these days. I haven’t noticed any particular increase in crime or anything worth getting all flustered about.”
25-29 year old male from Bingara

The same quarter of respondents thought it was mostly or completely a youth issue, and again, the same quarter said it would affect their vote in the forthcoming election. There was a very noticeable racist thread in many of the comment responses, particularly among younger men and towards immigrants, rather than youth. Literally no one said that crime would be the only issue they decide their vote on.