SYDNEY - Australian-based New Zealanders who commit crimes will no longer be masked by a veil of anonymity, following an initiative by police to record the ethnic backgrounds of offenders.
The New South Wales Bureau of Statistics and police have started recording the racial profile of offenders - including where they
and their parents were born - in an effort to determine whether specific ethnic groups are more involved in crime than others.
The study was prompted by community outrage following recent serious crimes involving Lebanese youth in Sydney's southwest.
Bureau director Dr Don Weatherburn said the ethnic-based figures would reveal for the first time if there was any factual basis for criticism of the Lebanese community.
Recent publicity highlighted Lebanese being involved in sexual assaults, robbery and shotgun offences. "[Involvement in crimes] is also true of New Zealanders, Australian-born people, it's also true of Romanians," Weatherburn said.
- NZPA
