In typical Australian fashion, the country has expended resources trying to understand the well-publicised attacks on Indian students (and crime in general against international students) from a statistical point-of-view, and adopt counter-measures appropriately. Widespread media coverage of the attacks led to a rapid drop-off in Indian enrolments in 2009 and 2010 and soul-searching among policy-makers that led to new visa rules.
Now, the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) has concluded that it is difficult to interpret the results of its study as evidence of racism. Instead, the report - which identified 13,204 unique victims of assault, robbery and other theft from its student database; 3% of all students from the five largest nationality groups that were living in Australia between 2005 and 2009 - highlighted other contributory factors, such as the typical employment and accommodation environment that male Indian students were in, as reasons for crime.
It did observe that Indian students experienced higher rates of assault than students from China, Korea, Malaysia and the USA, but added that overall, international students from these five countries generally experienced incidents of physical assault at significantly lower rates than in the general population in each state/territory jurisdiction in 2009.
The report explained, "Indian students in particular, are known to have a greater proficiency in English and, as such, appear much more likely than students from east Asian countries to find employment in the service sector. This includes service stations, convenience stores, taxi drivers and other employment that typically involves working late night shifts alone and come with an increased risk of crime, either at the workplace or while travelling to and from work."
It added that vocational students, which Indian students typically were, had limited access to the on-campus accommodation facilities of higher education students. "This led many to secure private rentals in inner urban areas as well as to rely on public transport in areas with higher concentrations of crime."
At the time of the attacks, there were claims that some taxi drivers in Melbourne were angry that so many Indian students were taking over their turf. One of the
fatal attacks that made international headlines was on a young Indian student working part-time as a taxi driver.
Now, with Indian numbers at a fraction of what they were, there are stories about
taxi driver shortages as a result. In 2008, 83 per cent of Melbourne's new taxi drivers were reported to be Indian students. By last June that had fallen to 29 per cent.
In typical Australian fashion, the country has expended resources trying to understand the well-publicised attacks on Indian students (and crime in general against international students) from a statistical point-of-view, and adopt counter-measures appropriately. Widespread media coverage of the attacks led to a rapid drop-off in Indian enrolments in 2009 and 2010 and soul-searching among policy-makers that led to new visa rules.
Now, the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) has concluded that it is difficult to interpret the results of its study as evidence of racism. Instead, the report – which identified 13,204 unique victims of assault, robbery and other theft from its student database; 3% of all students from the five largest nationality groups that were living in Australia between 2005 and 2009 – highlighted other contributory factors, such as the typical employment and accommodation environment that male Indian students were in, as reasons for crime.
It did observe that Indian students experienced higher rates of assault than students from China, Korea, Malaysia and the USA, but added that overall, international students from these five countries generally experienced incidents of physical assault at significantly lower rates than in the general population in each state/territory jurisdiction in 2009.
The report explained, “Indian students in particular, are known to have a greater proficiency in English and, as such, appear much more likely than students from east Asian countries to find employment in the service sector. This includes service stations, convenience stores, taxi drivers and other employment that typically involves working late night shifts alone and come with an increased risk of crime, either at the workplace or while travelling to and from work.”
It added that vocational students, which Indian students typically were, had limited access to the on-campus accommodation facilities of higher education students. “This led many to secure private rentals in inner urban areas as well as to rely on public transport in areas with higher concentrations of crime.”
At the time of the attacks, there were claims that some taxi drivers in Melbourne were angry that so many Indian students were taking over their turf. One of the fatal attacks that made international headlines was on a young Indian student working part-time as a taxi driver.
Now, with Indian numbers at a fraction of what they were, there are stories about taxi driver shortages as a result. In 2008, 83 per cent of Melbourne’s new taxi drivers were reported to be Indian students. By last June that had fallen to 29 per cent.
