Changing patterns of crime, and crime in the future

Speech given at the Salvation Army's Biennial Australia-wide Courts and Prisons Chaplains conference, Sydney, 4th May 2000 by Adam Graycar, Director, Australian Institute of Criminology. This speech is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Although most of Australia is comparatively safe, the incidence of crime is much greater than it was 20 years ago. Criminal activity hurts and outrages people, and costs the community billions of dollars. There are probably many many more opportunities than ever before for criminal behaviour, and one view is to argue that much crime may be the price we pay for living in a world which offers high material benefits and a very mobile lifestyle. The society in which we live is a society that has come to value instant gratification, and our technology delivers this