As part of an exercise in mapping crime and offenders in Western Australia for the period 1997-99, Morgan and Fernandez (2002: A29-31) derived rates of police-offender contacts for urban centres within the Kimberley and comparison of these offers some insight into the relative level of reported crime in Halls Creek, Kununurra and Wyndham urban centres vis-à-vis other towns in the Kimberley, and the region as a whole. One clear finding is that the Halls Creek area stands out as having by far the highest rate of Aboriginal offender contacts, with 35% of the population over 10 years apprehended. The second highest rate was reported in Kununurra with around 23%. Wyndham recorded levels around the Kimberley average of 16%. Compared to non-Aboriginal offender rates in these areas, these levels of Aboriginal police contact are astronomical—around 58 times higher in Halls Creek, 17 times higher in Kununurra, and 16 times higher in Wyndham. Also of note is the fact that offender rates for all males far exceed those of all females—by 5 times in Halls Creek, 4 times in Kununurra, and 5 times in Wyndham. As for the nature of offences reported, Halls Creek again stands out with relatively high rates of offences against the person, property offences, and good order offences—in each case far above the regional average and the levels reported in Kununurra and Wyndham. However, Kununurra recorded the highest rate of drug offences at almost 15 per thousand compared to the regional average of around 10 per thousand.

Supplementary charts to the CRC reports for the Aboriginal Justice Council also provide regional postcode data by Indigenous status (Loh and Ferrante 2001). For example, in Table 8.2, reported property offence rates are shown according to Kimberley postcode areas in 2000. The first point to note is that the rate of reported property offences is higher for non-Indigenous victims compared to Indigenous victims, although the exact extent of the difference between the two is indeterminate owing to a large number of victims whose Indigenous status is not established. The second observation is that the rate of property offences reported by Indigenous people is greatest in Kununurra and very low in Wyndham, while for non-Indigenous people reported offences are highest in Derby and Broome.

As for reported violent crime, by far the highest rates are reported by Aboriginal people in the Kununurra and Broome postcode areas (Table 8.3). In the Kununurra area, Aboriginal people report violent offences against the person at a rate 8 times higher than their non-Indigenous counterparts. This is by far the greatest discrepancy in violent crime reporting across the Kimberley. At the other extreme, Aboriginal people in the Wyndham area report relatively low rates of violent offences, and at a rate very similar to non-Aboriginal people.