This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Gold Coast police officers are trying to paint a better picture of the official crime rate by “soliciting” victims to withdraw complaints, a damning report has found.

The Queensland auditor general’s report also warns crime statistics collated and released by the state’s police service should be “treated with caution”.

“The Queensland Police Service has an unacceptable amount of crime data across the state that is incomplete, inaccurate, and wrongly classified,” it reads.

Tabled in parliament on Wednesday, the report found an unhealthy focus on achieving performance targets on the tourist strip over quality data.

Officers in the Gold Coast district had multiple methods designed to make victims withdraw their complaints, thereby increasing the clearance rate, it was found.

The report said tactics also included sending letters to victims requiring them to respond within seven days or else it would be “presumed” no further action was wanted and the complaint withdrawn.

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The district also supposedly adopted a “three strikes policy” where, if the victim couldn’t be contacted after three attempts, the complaint would be marked as withdrawn.

The scathing report also found a practice of altering crime data statistics by Gold Coast officers had “gone unnoticed or unchallenged at senior levels”.

“Gold Coast staff reported that an unhealthy focus on achieving performance targets, rather than data quality, has contributed to these results,” it states.

Flawed data reporting also appears to exist beyond the police service, with the auditor general also finding fault with information released to the public by the Queensland Corrective Services.

The report was drawn from information gathered during an audit carried out between March 2016 and March 2017.

Police minister Mark Ryan welcomed the release of the report and said it was already being acted on by the police and corrective services commissioners.



“I have also asked the police commissioner for regular updates on improvements to the QPS’ governance and quality assurance systems that are aimed at improving crime reporting quality and accuracy,” Ryan said in a statement.

Opposition police spokesperson Tim Mander said the leadership of the QPS has serious questions to answer, but also criticised the Labor government for not establishing a promised independent crime statistics office.

“Police Minister Mark Ryan needs to come clean and indicate just how bad the crime situation really is,” Mander said in a statement