Level 8

iii Crime on the Rail System On the 19th of August last year a young girl was reportedly menaced and indecently assaulted on a North Sydney train. The following month, at Regent’s Park railway station, a teenager was reportedly stabbed in the back with a knife when attacked by 30 high school students. A month later, in October, a youth was attacked with a knife while travelling in a train at Bondi Junction. When assaults and other forms of serious criminal offence occur at railway stations or on trains they are widely reported in the media and arouse understandable anxiety about the risks associated with using the rail system. Not all of this anxiety will necessarily be justified. Whether justified or not, however, any increase in public concern about the risks of using trains can easily lead to reduced rail patronage, a fall in government revenue and inefficient utilisation of rail services. The State Rail Authority has been engaged in an active program of crime prevention, both to reduce real rates of crime on the rail system and to reassure rail passengers of th