Once upon a time when my partner was going away on a business trip, the day before he left I went shopping. Guess what I bought.
Was it … clothes? No.
Was it … DVDs to get through the lonely evenings? No.
Was it … books and magazines to kill the time? No.
I bought a baseball bat. And I don’t play baseball – but having it by my bedside somehow made me feel safer after dark.
The safety of a suburb is somewhat hard to measure. There’s no official rating, there’s no number that is assigned to a suburb to represent its safety, and that lets you compare the suburbs. To me, it’s how safe you feel in your home that matters.
What am I afraid of?
Being at home alone after dark makes me fear for my own safety or that of my possessions. I am not a wealthy person nor do I have valuables stashed all over the house, yet I do worry about the little things that I have.
But I guess the main question is – do these fears have a basis?
If we look at the statistics, according to the ABS, 96,700 people were victims of at least one robbery in 2008, and in general out of all the victims who complained to the police 39% were robbed.
In the category of Household Crime, 912,500 households had their house maliciously damaged, 369,200 had something stolen from their car and 267,800 households were victims of at least one break-in to their home, garage or shed.
If we look at the whole country (again, statistics from 2008), Victoria and Tasmania appear to be the safest states with the fewest break-ins (lower than the country-wide average), and the Northern Territory and Western Australia appear to have the highest number of break-ins.
In the cases of malicious damage to property things that were destroyed included fences, walls, doors and windows. The country-wide average is 11% – meaning it happens in at least one in every 10 houses, quite high I’d say.
Talking of feeling safe at home, it looks like I am not alone – if 83% of people said they were feeling safe during the day, only 70% felt safe home alone after dark.
Overall, 69% of people think there are problems from crime or public nuisance in their neighborhood – be it noisy driving (45%); vandalism, graffiti or damage to property (35%); and housebreakings, burglaries or theft from homes (29%).
Do you feel safe in your home? If not, what is it you’re afraid of?
