In 1996, the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research - a statuatory government agency, released a comprehensive study of the 1989 legislation. The government's leading crime expert has savaged the law and the government's law-and-order policies. The study reports that the State's long prison sentences are not cutting crime and community policing policies have often only encouraged police to spend more money finding out what the publicthinks of police. It said that the longer prison sentences introduced in 1989, which increased jail terms by up to 72 percent, were a classic case of a tough policy having little or no effect on crime rates.

In the five years following 1989, the jail population rose by nearly 60 percent but over the same period, the rates for murder, sexual assault, robbery and stealing stayed the same.