Police Association questions accuracy of Victorian crime data
Victoria Police and the state government say crime data is accurately reported but a row has broken out over the reporting of statistics as the police union puts pressure on the state government in its pay fight.
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A row has developed over the reporting of Victoria’s crime statistics as the police union pressures the state government in its pay battle.
The Police Association was authorised this week to hold a ballot of its members to carry out industrial action, which would include “an unlimited number of days on which members will perform their work differently by listing all offences on crime reports”.
But Victoria Police and the state government maintain crime statistics are already accurately reported.
Police Association secretary Wayne Gatt told 3AW most of the crime data was “made public and some of it’s aggregated”.
“Where you might have an offender who’s committed a significant number of offences, the primary offences themselves might be listed but not all the other subsidiary offences, it might just be put into one basket,” he said. “What we’re saying is we’ll individualise each and every item.”
The effect “would be that crime stats would go up over that period”, he said.
Asked whether the current data did not give the full picture of crime in Victoria, Mr Gatt said: “Statistics in aggregate form can sometimes give you that impression.”
But a Victoria Police spokeswoman said all offences were recorded by police, and the Crime Statistics Agency was responsible for independently collating and reporting the data.
The agency reports on the number of criminal incidents, in which criminal events — such as a person breaking into a house, stealing items and assaulting the occupant — are described as single events, determined by the most serious offence. The agency also provides detailed data on the total number of offences recorded.
“Any suggestion that our hardworking Victoria Police officers aren’t recording offences, or that the independent Crime Statistics Agency is not reporting crime, is entirely inaccurate,” a state government spokesman said.
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It comes as the Police Association fights for a pay rise above the government’s 2 per cent annual cap on public sector wage rises.
Mr Gatt said the ballot on industrial action — including parking police cars outside government offices and handing out campaign flyers — could be held in coming weeks.
But he said the union “really don’t want to do this” and he hoped a deal could be struck.
“We’d be really disappointed if government missed this opportunity to settle this dispute in the next fortnight because it is a dispute that can be settled,” Mr Gatt said.