Australia is situated on the island continent. It also occupies the Island of Tasmania and some minor islands round the coast of the continent. Its area is about 8 million km2. It is the only state in the world that occupies the territory of a whole continent. Almost one half of Australian territory is occupied by deserts and semideserts. The capital of Australia is Canberra. The official language of Australia is English, because from 1787 to 1867 Australia was a place where criminals were sent from Britain. Australia is one of the most unusual and exotic countries of the world. A significant feature of modern Australian society is the representation of a lot of cultures drawn from many lands by its people.
Crime has been around us for many centuries. Every day when we open a newspaper or turn on TV almost all we read or hear is about criminals and their illegal actions. According to the law, people who commit a crime must be punished, imprisoned or even sentenced to a death penalty. Without punishment our life in the society would be less secure, although sometimes punishment isn’t strict enough, to my mind.
Some kinds of crimes are as old as the human society (such as stealing, pick-pocketing, vandalism, assault or domestic violence, murder and manslaughter), others are a more recent phenomenon. Armed robbery of stores and banks, hacking into computers (so called “cyber frauds”), corruption or forgery of money and documents, for instance, are some of them. The 20thcentury has also seen the appearance of organized crimes such as drug-trafficking, drug-smuggling and hijacking. Statistics show an alarming rise of violent crimes and crimes to do with the illegal sale of arms across the world. Unfortunately women and children often become the victims of crime. Sometimes criminals kidnap rich people or their kids and ask for a ransom to be paid for them.
Besides violent crimes, there are so called “white-collar crimes” in our modern society. These are frauds when a person isn’t physically threatened or hurt. Among them are tax evasion (when people are accused of not paying taxes on purpose), bribery, identity theft (when a criminal steals personal information of another person in order to use his credit cards or bank accounts, for example).
To crown it all, we must regret that today a great deal of crimes is committed by teenagers who want to become independent as soon as possible and to find a royal road to getting much money. Teenagers use drugs and drink alcohol, so they can’t control themselves. Moreover, modern TV programs and films containing much violence and sex often have huge and negative influence on teenagers.
In conclusion I should say that crime prevention in our society is an extremely difficult and complicated task because we should change our social and moral principles at large.
Australia is one of the most unusual and exotic countries of the world. A significant feature of modern Australian society is the representation of a lot of cultures drawn from many lands by its people.