New crime figures for regional NSW fuel CWA of NSW’s push for state inquiry into worsening crisis

With new figures released this week emphasising the growing gap between crime rates in metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas in NSW, the Country Women’s Association (CWA) of NSW has renewed its call for a state parliamentary inquiry into rural and regional crime.

Since late last year, the CWA of NSW, along with the NSW Country Mayors Association (CMA), Police Association of New South Wales (PANSW) and NSW Farmers have been calling for an inquiry, citing the deteriorating state of crime, law and order in NSW’s regions.

New statistics announced yesterday support that call, the CWA of NSW says, with the analysis from the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR) highlighting the growing discrepancies between crime rates in regional NSW and those in Sydney.  

BOSCAR said in 2023, the rate of property crime was about 60 per cent higher in the regions compared to Sydney, while for violent crime it was 57 per cent higher. In some of the western areas of NSW, the rates for those same offences were at least double the state average.

“If this doesn’t underline the urgent need for our policy-makers to launch an inquiry into this deepening crisis, then I don’t know what does,” said CWA of NSW President Joy Beames. “The figures from BOSCAR are truly alarming and show with great clarity the anxiety and fear in many regional communities, right across our state.”

Joy said the announcement by the State Government earlier this week of a $26 million package to support community safety in regional areas, with a focus on youth crime, was welcomed by the association, but didn’t go far enough in trying to turn the situation around.

“It’s a start, and we see it as an acknowledgement finally by the NSW Government that there is a real crime problem in our regions, but we now want them to take the next logical step and launch an inquiry to hear from these communities, and the issues they’re facing, and start to determine strategies and measures to turn these terrible statistics around,” she said.

“We’ve reached out to the relevant government ministers to support an inquiry, and we’ll continue to do all we can to make it a reality because this is something our members are passionate about, seeing the awful toll this crime epidemic is taking on their communities.”


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