The misconception that Western Australia is "drowning in a wave of crime" is perpetuated by media and leads policy makers to react to public pressure rather than facts, according to the state's top judge.
Chief Justice Wayne Martin says long term crime trends in WA and Australia are generally going down, with the exception of assault, and the idea that courts are responding with lenient sentences is wrong.
"Unfortunately people get a distorted perception of what's actually going on because of the nature of news and my real worry is that policy makers respond to perception, not fact," he said on ABC radio.
"Why is there this misconception? I think the answer lies in the nature of news.
"I don't for a minute suggest the media are distorting the position, but it's just what's newsworthy."
Chief Justice Martin said there had been just over 3300 people in WA prisons when he was appointed to the position in 2006, which had now almost doubled to about 6000.
"So in just over 10 years the prison population has almost doubled at a time when crime is trending downwards," he said.
The chief justice, however, said the rise in assault was a serious and worrying trend.
"It was trending downwards until about five years ago and it's been trending upwards in WA for the last five years," he said.
Chief Justice Martin said illicit drugs, in particular methamphetamine, played a part in the vast majority of armed robbery cases, and more needed to be done outside the justice system to remedy this.
"I can't remember a case in the last 10 years that hasn't had an illicit drug component, it would be 97, 98 per cent of the cases we see, and increasingly over that 10 years, the drug of choice has become methamphetamine," he said.
Pure law enforcement and harsh sentencing could not solve Australia's methamphetamine problem, Chief Justice Martin said, and a multifaceted approach through education and healthcare needed to be adopted.
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