How convenient for Senator Conroy; media is buying the Internet sky is falling story

Net blamed as 10,000 kids turn to crime screams an article in The Age on Sunday.
An unnamed Victorian Police source said it was so in that state and never mind that there was no evidence (nor could there be) supplied to support this claim, or that named sources did not think to mention this startling fact

If this dodgy claim had any veracity it should be reflected in similar crime statistics from other states.

This would be especially true of New South Wales, which has roughly the same percentage of children under 15 years as Victoria but accounts for around 33% of all Australian internet connections .

Those NSW figures for the first quarter 2008 clearly indicate that there is not an increasing horde of juveniles turning to crime.

Over the last five years the recorded rate of juvenile involvement in crime fell in six major categories, rose in two and remained stable in the other nine.

Offence Trend Average annual percentage change
DV related assault Up 5.1%
Break and enter non-dwelling Down -5.0%
Motor vehicle theft Down -7.1%
Steal from motor vehicle Down -4.2%
Steal from retail store Down -4.1%
Steal from dwelling Down -5.1%
Steal from person Down -10.8%
Malicious damage to property Up 5.7%

Ever since the Federal Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Stephen Conroy, announced that he was proceeding with his national ISP filtering scheme, despite the obvious technical drawbacks and censorship overtones [Full report PDF], I have been waiting for the first media story ploughing the ground ahead of the ultra-conservative senator's next move.

I suspect that The Age article will be the first of many. Most pushing the spurious claim that Conroy's censorship is all about 'protecting' the children.