Blackmail, extortion and sexual assault rates are on the rise in Australia but most other violent crimes are in decline, recent crime figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics reveal.
Georgina Fuller from the Australian Institute of Criminology says while recent crime statistics do appear to show a jump in rates for sexual assaults and blackmail and extortion, the overall picture is not as bad as it seems.
"What we've found is sexual assault and things like blackmail and extortion, whilst they're on the rise [the occurrence rates are] not substantial. When we compare it to other types of crime, high volume crimes like assault, where the rate of reoffending is significant... the rates of victims are quite small," she says.
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"I'm in no way saying it's not a serious crime to occur," she adds. "But the rise in [rates of occurrence]... are not massive."
What the data can't explain is whether the rates of sexual assault reflects an increase in actual crimes committed, rather than an increase in reporting.
"We can see that over the past three years reporting of crimes to police have been on the increase, and that's something I think is really important," says Ms Fuller.
She believes it's also "too early to tell" whether an apparent jump in sexual assault cases is representative of a growing problem in Australia.
"It's important to look where we're coming from. For crimes like sexual assault, it's been on the decrease for a while."
For blackmail and extortion rates, Ms Fuller says it's difficult to speculate as to why rates might be increasing, particularly because the number of reported cases is small.
However, she says, it is possible increasing usage of the internet and mobile phones could be a contributing factor.
"We know that crime is moving online because there is an availability of the technology," she says.
On a brighter note, she adds, the overall crime figures in Australia do contain some good news, showing a "historically low" rate of homicide at a rate of 1 per 100,000.
