Queensland’s police minister has apologised for the release of bungled data that overstated a reduction in the number of victims of crime in the state.<\/p>\n
The Queensland Police Service (QPS) said human error was to blame for the incorrect figures, which were announced by Premier David Crisafulli at a press conference last week.<\/p>\n
The data indicated that between January and September this year, the number of victims of crime in Queensland had fallen 10.8 per cent on a per capita basis when compared to the same time last year.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Premier David Crisafulli had announced the reduction in victims’ numbers at a press conference last week. (AAP Image: Russell Freeman)<\/p>\n
But Police Minister Dan Purdie admitted in state parliament on Wednesday the figures were wrong, and the actual reduction was 6.5 per cent.<\/p>\n
He said his office had raised concerns with the verification of data before last week’s press conference. Mr Purdie said it had been reassured by police on multiple occasions the figures were accurate.<\/p>\n
“The methods and processes applied to the analysis of this data will be examined and improved ahead of next month’s reporting,” Mr Purdie said.<\/p>\n
“The 6.5 per cent reduction is still showing we are moving in the right direction, but there is still much more work to be done.<\/p>\n
“I have received a personal apology from the Commissioner of police for the error, and I would like to add my own apologies to Queenslanders.”<\/p>\n
Mr Crisafulli made crime a central issue in his campaign to win government and has promised to resign if victim numbers do not fall by the end of this term.<\/p>\n
The data released was compiled by the QPS and is separate to the victims’ numbers released each year by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Queensland Police Commissioner Steve Gollschewski said police took full responsibility for the error. (ABC News: Lucas Hill)<\/p>\n
Police take ‘full responsibility’\u00a0<\/p>\n
In a statement, Queensland Police Commissioner Steve Gollschewski apologised for the error.<\/p>\n
“The QPS acknowledges this error and takes full responsibility for the issue,” he said.<\/p>\n
“It occurred as a result of human error. There was an incorrect coding process applied to extract the data.<\/p>\n
“We take our obligation to provide accurate and reliable information seriously, and any instance of inadvertent misinformation is unacceptable.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Opposition Leader Steven Miles, however, criticised Mr Crisafulli for the blunder.<\/p>\n
“Queenslanders can never believe David Crisafulli again when it comes to victim data,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Queenslanders know that crime continues to be a big concern.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Queensland’s police minister has apologised for the release of bungled data that overstated a reduction in the number…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":305525,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4740,4219,154867,154870,4795,50,154868,80,4797,154869,154873,154871,154872,91475],"class_list":{"0":"post-305524","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-crime","10":"tag-crime-data","11":"tag-dan-purdie","12":"tag-david-crisafulli","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-police-figures","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-qld","17":"tag-qld-government","18":"tag-qps","19":"tag-steve-gollschewski","20":"tag-steven-miles","21":"tag-victims-of-crime"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115378587762828525","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}