NCJ Number
146952
Journal
Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology Volume: 26 Issue: 3 Dated: (December 1993) Pages: 251-271
Date Published
1993
Length
21 pages
Annotation
This article presents the results of an assessment of the deterrence effectiveness of Western Australia's Crime (Serious and Repeat Offenders) Sentencing Act 1992, which targets high-risk juvenile offenders for harsher sentences.
Abstract
Throughout 1991, a car theft "crime wave" and a series of deaths that resulted from high-speed police pursuits had fueled a sense of crisis in "law and order" in Western Australia. This prompted the enactment of the Crime Sentencing Act 1992. A critique of the legislation shows that it violated human rights and failed to address the difficulties of applying selective incapacitation policies. Following the introduction of the new law, the government claimed that decreases in car thefts, other offenses, and police high-speed pursuits were due to the deterrent effects of the harsher penalties. The data, however, show that the decline in official records of car theft and juvenile convictions had begun before the legislation. Significant correlations between reports of stolen vehicles and arrests for car theft (especially Aboriginal juvenile arrests) were found, but not for police high-speed pursuits or arrests of persistent offenders and reports of stolen vehicles. This indicates that targeting "hard core" juvenile offenders had, at best, modest and temporary effects on vehicle theft. Although a sudden decline in the relevant statistics occurred about the time of the law's enactment, this proved short-lived; and other factors, such as changes in policing procedures, were better explanations of the decline than the new legislation. The new policing measures included the use of cautioning, the formation of a special motor vehicle task force, and stricter guidelines for pursuits. 3 tables, 4 figures, and 37 references