Andrew Bolt, perhaps encouraged by the ‘revenge of the nerds’ regime change at Melbourne’s Herald Sun is off the long run this morning, returning to one of his pet themes, the eerie juxtaposition of crime and dark skin. Kevin Andrews was right, Bolt reminds us, to “worry and urge caution” over our intake of African refugees, people who, it appears, all too readily turn to crime. Bolt concludes after a lengthy (he does bang on) survey of the available statistics.
Here is some other number crunching, just to put this poisonous little call to arms into perspective.
Says Bolt, “The Victoria Police Crime Statistics 2006-07 record that 115 Somalis allegedly committed a crime that year. Given the 2006 Census says 2626 Somalia-born people live in Victoria, the police figures mean one in 23 Somalis was allegedly involved in crime in just one year. For the rest of us, it’s just one in 85.”
So he’s saying that 1 in 23 Somalis of all ages allegedly commit offences in a given year in Victoria. Which is barely different to the 1 in 24 of all Victorians between the ages of 15-19 that allegedly commit offences in a given year. Most of the Somali offenders are actually between 15 and 24. The document that this all comes from can be seen here (it’s only a page). So really you’d have to view the Somali crime rate as a triumph of successful social integration. No better, no worse than the rest of us.
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While we’re kicking out the Somalians, lets go ahead and kick out those rascally New Zealanders, Not to mention the British and Irish that are committing all that crime. Hey what about the Chinese, Greek, Italians, Lebanese, Vietnamese and Yugoslavians… because they, according to this table, are also committing alot of crime. God Andrew Bolt makes me crazy angry.
No particular arguement against you Tom W, other than to point out that Crikey is far closer to comparing apples with apples than Andrew Bolt was. The man is so predictable. Anyone ever assembling an arguement against Bolt need look no further than his use of stats.
“Most of the Somali offenders are actually between 15 and 24. ” To be fair, you’d have to compare crime rates per exact age group and birthplace – as just saying most of them are between 15 and 24 isn’t specific enough.
I don’t normally agree with JamesK but he has a point here. The author of this peice (not specified – perhaps it’s time Crikey changed that?) has clearly tortured the numbers to come out with their version of events. You cannot say 1 in 23 of all somalians and then talk of “most” being in the age group that fits your thesis, even if the “most” was 80% (I would be interested in the actual figure and the basis of this claim) this is still making the 1 in 23 much higher and the argument more invalid.
You might not like Bolt’s message (I can’t stand the man) but choose an avenue of attack that you can win.
I may not have progressed past first year stats when I was at uni, but I can’t agree that Crikey has ‘tortured’ the numbers, MattV. Crikey has certainly tortured them less than Bolt did. Bolt’s conclusion about the relative crime rates within and without the Somali population assumes that the age distribution of the Somali and general Victorian populations are the same, when they’re clearly not. The comparison needs to be made between Somali’s of a certain age and the general population of the same age range, and neither Crikey nor Bolt have done this well. Similarly, allowances have not been made in respect of the other factors which affect crime rates (such as income and gender). If you’re not comparing apples with apples, the stats are less than useless.