The involvement in crime of some young Sudanese-born Victorians has received sustained public attention in recent years. The media coverage of these occurrences has been extensive, with some outlets criticised for sensationalist reporting and prejudiced undertones. A range of views were held across the commentariat including, for example, the notion that Sudanese-Victorian criminal involvement has been overstated; that some level of justice over-representation was inevitable due to the demographics of Sudanese-born Victorians, which skew young and male (i.e. the demographic hypothesis); and that offending rates may be associated with heightened law enforcement responses following a high-profile criminal incident in March 2016 that received protracted media coverage and political commentary (i.e. the racial-profiling hypothesis). This paper sought to address these contentions by (i) examining the offending rates of both young and adult males across three cultural sub-groups (i.e. Sudanese-born, Indigenous Australian, Australian-born) across several offending categories between 2015 and 2018 and (ii) exploring the impact of a high-profile criminal incident in March 2016, on the offending rates of Sudanese-born Victorians. Offending rates were calculated using offender incident data from the Victorian Crime Statistics Agency and population estimates from the Australian Bureau of Statistics Census data. Findings indicate that Sudanese-born individuals figure prominently in both youth and adult offending categories relative to other major cultural sub-groups. Rates for ‘crimes against the person’ were especially pronounced for Sudanese-born youth and significantly higher than rates for crimes more subject to police discretion (i.e. public order offences). The ‘demographic hypothesis’ did not hold for the specified age range of 10 to 17 years. An increase in offending was observed post-March 2016 across two offending categories for Sudanese-born Victorians. Findings are contextualised within.

中文翻译：

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估计在维多利亚州出生的苏丹人犯罪的程度和性质

近年来，一些在苏丹出生的年轻维多利亚人的犯罪行为受到了公众的持续关注。媒体对这些事件进行了广泛报道，一些媒体因耸人听闻的报道和带有偏见的言辞而受到批评。整个评论区都持有一系列观点，例如，苏丹-维多利亚时期的犯罪活动被夸大了；由于出生于苏丹的维多利亚人的人口统计数据偏向年轻人和男性（即人口假设），某种程度的正义过度代表是不可避免的；并且在 2016 年 3 月发生了引起媒体长时间报道和政治评论（即种族定性假设）的备受瞩目的犯罪事件后，犯罪率可能与执法部门的反应加强有关。本文试图通过 (i) 研究 2015 年至 2018 年间跨几个犯罪类别的三个文化子群体（即苏丹出生、澳大利亚土著、澳大利亚出生）的年轻和成年男性的犯罪率来解决这些争论，并且（ ii) 探讨 2016 年 3 月发生的一起备受瞩目的犯罪事件对苏丹出生的维多利亚人犯罪率的影响。犯罪率是使用维多利亚州犯罪统计局的罪犯事件数据和澳大利亚统计局人口普查数据的人口估计数计算得出的。调查结果表明，相对于其他主要文化子群体，苏丹出生的个人在青年和成人犯罪类别中占有突出地位。“针对个人的犯罪”的比率在苏丹出生的青年中尤为明显，并且明显高于更受警方自由裁量权的犯罪（即公共秩序犯罪）的比率。“人口学假设”不适用于 10 至 17 岁的特定年龄范围。在 2016 年 3 月之后，苏丹出生的维多利亚人在两个犯罪类别中的犯罪率有所增加。调查结果是在上下文中的。