The NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics (BOCSAR) report, released on Tuesday, revealed confidence in the state's police and courts plummeted in 2025 to the lowest point since records began in 2007.
Trust in police experienced the biggest decline, logging a nine percentage point drop to 73 per cent between 2019 and 2025.
There was also a sharp fall in the number of people who believe police treated those accused of crimes with fairness and respect, according to the report that polled 2000 adults in NSW.
Australia was in the grips of a "trust crisis" impacting views on authority, Griffith University criminologist Kristina Murphy said.
"I think that if you look at the COVID-19 situation there were a lot of stories in the media about police issuing COVID-19 fines quite disproportionately in certain states," she told AAP.
Between 2019 and 2025, confidence that police met victims' needs dropped 14 percentage points to 56 per cent, while trust that police dealt with cases promptly fell 17 percentage points to 49 per cent.
Just over half of respondents felt assured that state courts and police brought offenders to justice, the report found.
BOCSAR executive director Jackie Fitzgerald agreed more strained relations with police during the COVID-19 pandemic was a possible trigger for the slide in trust.
Other pressures she cited were increased media scrutiny, and heightened public discussions around issues such as youth crime and domestic violence.
A justice system must be rooted in community trust to be effective, Ms Fitzgerald noted.
"Public confidence underpins the legitimacy of the criminal justice system," she said.
"When trust declines, people may be less willing to report crime, engage with police and courts, or participate as witnesses and jurors."
With public confidence at an all-time low, Professor Murphy said it would likely take years to rebuild trust.
"You do tend to find that trust goes up but it's a lot more difficult to get that change in trust to go up, relative to how quickly it can be lost," she said.
12°C