4515.0 - Federal Defendants, Australia, 2013-14 Quality Declaration 
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 04/06/2015   
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This document was added or updated on 11/08/2015.

EXPLANATORY NOTES

INTRODUCTION

1
This publication presents information on the characteristics of federal defendants finalised in Australia's state and territory criminal courts. This includes information on the offences, case outcomes and sentences associated with those defendants.

2
The information presented in this publication relates to the criminal jurisdictions of the Higher (Supreme and Intermediate), Magistrates' and Children's Courts within each state and territory. The criminal jurisdiction of the courts includes the trial and sentencing of both persons and organisations charged with criminal federal offences in Australia.

3
Federal defendants are a subset of the Criminal Courts collection which comprises all defendants finalised in Australia's criminal courts. Information relating to all defendants finalised in the criminal courts is available in the publication Criminal Courts, Australia (cat. no. 4513.0).

DATA SOURCE


4
National statistics are derived from administrative records held by state and territory agencies responsible for courts administration. The ABS receives data directly from these agencies, with the exception of Queensland (where data are supplied via the Office of the Government Statistician), and New South Wales (where data are supplied via the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research).

5
In order to ensure consistency between the states and territories, jurisdictions are requested to provide data coded according to national classifications and standards. Data are then processed and compiled by the ABS in line with these classifications and standards. For more information see paragraphs 20–27.

SCOPE


6
The scope of the statistics presented in this publication include defendants with at least one offence against Commonwealth legislation that have been finalised in the Higher, Magistrates' or Children's Courts during the reference period. Defendants with charges against both Commonwealth legislation and State and Territory legislation are still within scope of the collection, however, only federal offences are counted for the purposes of this publication.

7
The Federal Defendants collection is limited to defendants finalised within the reference period. That is, a person or organisation whose charges have been formally completed so that the defendant ceases to be an item of work to be dealt with by the court.

8
The geographic definition of Australia, as used by the ABS, includes Other Territories. In the Federal Defendants collection, defendants whose cases were heard in the criminal courts on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Christmas Island, are included in the counts for Western Australia, where applicable. Defendants finalised in Jervis Bay Territory are not included in this publication.

Higher Courts


9
Data include defendants finalised (i.e. persons or organisations for whom all charges have been formally completed so that they cease to be an item of outstanding work) in the original jurisdiction of the Supreme and Intermediate Courts (collectively referred to as the Higher Courts) across all states and territories and may include children treated as adults by the courts.

10
Within the criminal jurisdiction, all states and territories have a Supreme Court that deals with the most serious criminal matters, generally referred to as indictable offences. These offences include murder, manslaughter and drug trafficking as well as serious sexual offences, robberies and assaults. The larger states (New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia) also have an intermediate level of court, known as the District, or County Court, that deals with more serious criminal offences than heard by the Magistrates’ Courts.

Magistrates' Courts


11
Data include defendants finalised (i.e. persons or organisations for whom all charges have been formally completed so that they cease to be an item of outstanding work) in the original jurisdiction of the Magistrates' Courts across all states and territories and may include children treated as adults by the court.

12
The lowest level of criminal court is the Magistrates’ Court, also known as the Court of Summary Jurisdiction, Local Court or Court of Petty Sessions. The majority of all criminal cases are heard in these courts. Cases heard in the Magistrates’ Courts do not involve a jury as a magistrate determines whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty. This is known as a summary proceeding.

Children's Courts


13
Data include defendants finalised (i.e. persons for whom charges have been formally completed so that they cease to be an item of outstanding work) in the original jurisdiction of the Children's Courts.

14
Each state and territory has Children's Courts to deal with offences alleged to have been committed by young people. These courts mainly deal with summary proceedings; however in some jurisdictions they also have the power to hear indictable matters.

15
In all states and territories, children under 10 years of age cannot be charged with a criminal offence. People under 18 years of age at the time an offence was committed are considered a child or juvenile in all states and territories except Queensland. In Queensland, a child or juvenile is classified as persons under 17 years of age.

Exclusions


16
The Higher, Magistrates' and Children's Courts data exclude bail reviews and applications to amend sentences or penalties. Also excluded are breach of community-based orders, appeal cases, tribunal matters and defendants for whom a bench warrant is issued but not executed.

17
The Magistrates' and Children's Courts data exclude finalisations in specialist courts, such as Drug Courts, Electronic Courts, Fine Recovery Units, Family Violence Courts and Indigenous Courts. Defendants referred to these specialist courts may be included in the mainstream courts data as transfers.

18
The Australian Road Rules are maintained by the National Transport Commission but only apply if they are adopted in each state and territory through local legislation. In the Northern Territory, offences against the Australian Road Rules are identified as federal offences. To ensure consistency across all states and territories, the Australian Road Rules and their state or territory enacting legislation are excluded from the scope of the Federal Defendants collection.

REFERENCE PERIOD


19
The statistics presented in this publication relate to federal defendants who had criminal cases finalised within the Higher, Magistrates' and Children's Courts during the reference period 1 July 2013 to 30 June 2014. Selected time series data are also presented within this publication from 2010-11 onwards.

CLASSIFICATIONS


20
The national classifications used to collect and produce data on federal defendants are:

  • Australian and New Zealand Standard Offence Classification (ANZSOC) (refer to Appendix 1);
  • Method of finalisation (refer to Appendix 2); and
  • Sentence type (refer to Appendix 3).
21 The classifications provide a framework for organising criminal court information for statistical purposes, and have a hierarchical structure allowing for different levels of detail to be recorded depending on the level of detail available in the source information. Associated with each classification are coding rules which ensure that the counting of information is consistent across states and territories.

Australian and New Zealand Standard Offence Classification (ANZSOC)


22
The offence categories used for Federal Defendants statistics in this publication are classified to the Australian and New Zealand Standard Offence Classification (ANZSOC) (cat. no. 1234.0) (see Appendix 1). ANZSOC provides a national framework for classifying offences for statistical purposes. The first release of this classification was the Australian Standard Offence Classification 1997 (cat. no. 1234.0) (ASOC97). In 2008 the ABS released the second edition of the Australian Standard Offence Classification (ASOC08), which reflected changes that had occurred in criminal legislation since the first edition was released, as well as satisfying emerging user requirements for offence data. The ASOC was renamed ANZSOC in July 2011 to reflect its adoption in New Zealand. ANZSOC contains the same offence details and classification as ASOC08.

National Offence Index (NOI)


23
The National Offence Index (NOI) (cat. no. 1234.0.55.001) is a ranking of all ANZSOC Groups and supplementary ANZSOC codes (ANZSOC Divisions and/or ANZSOC Subdivisions). This ranking is based on the concept of 'offence seriousness', with a ranking of 1 relating to the ANZSOC code associated with the most serious offence.

24
The first version of the NOI was released in 2002. This was superseded by the second version, released in 2009 to accommodate the changes made in ASOC08. Offence information for 2010–11 onwards is based on the 2009 edition of the NOI.

25
The assumptions and rules underpinning the NOI, in particular defining 'offence seriousness' and the impact of this definition on the ranking of offences, need to be considered when using the principal federal offence data in this publication. However, it is important to note that these technical issues are only of practical significance where a choice must be made between output categories. For example, although some Sexual assault and related offences are ranked ahead of Illicit drug offences, they are unlikely to co-occur.

Method of Finalisation


26
This classification categorises how a defendant has been finalised by a court. Main categories include adjudications, non-adjudications and transfers. For more information see Appendix 2 and paragraphs 31–38.

Sentence Type


27
This classification is used to assign a principal sentence to defendants who are proven guilty. For more information see Appendix 3 and paragraphs 43–46.

COUNTING METHODOLOGY


Finalised defendant


28
The principal counting unit for the Federal Defendants collection is the finalised defendant. A defendant is a person or organisation against whom one or more criminal charges have been laid and which are heard together as the one unit of work by a court at a particular level. It should be noted that the collection does not enumerate unique persons or organisations. If a person or organisation is a defendant in a number of criminal cases dealt with and finalised separately within the courts during the reference period, this person or organisation will be counted more than once within that reference period.

29
Where a person or organisation is a defendant in more than one case, and their cases are finalised on the same date and in the same court level, their defendant records will be merged and counted as a single defendant record. This merging rule is used for defendants finalised in the Higher, Magistrates' and Children's Courts.

30
Courts in some jurisdictions operate programs which transfer defendants to drug and other specialist courts for finalisation. These defendants are counted as finalised by transfer in the criminal court level that recommended the transfer. In some instances, defendants may be referred to programs where, upon completion of the program, the defendant returns for finalisation to the court that requested the transfer.

METHOD OF FINALISATION


31
Method of finalisation describes how a criminal charge is concluded by a criminal court. For the purposes of the Federal Defendants collection, one method of finalisation is applied to each defendant within the Higher, Magistrates' and Children's Courts.

Transfers between Higher Court levels


32
Defendants who transfer from one Higher Court to another Higher Court are considered as initiated only once and finalised only once.

Transfers between the Magistrates' Court and the Higher Court levels


33
Defendants who transfer from the Magistrates' Court to the Higher Court (or vice versa) are considered to be initiated twice (once in each court level) and finalised twice (once in each court level).

34
Defendants with a principal federal offence of Illicit drug offences or Sexual assault and related offences are more likely to be transferred from the Magistrates' Court to the Higher Court than defendants for other offences, and are therefore more likely to have a method of finalisation of a transfer. The high proportion of transfers for these offences should be taken into consideration when interpreting data by method of finalisation as it may impact on the proportion of defendants proven guilty for these offences.

Transfers between Children's Courts and Magistrates' or Higher Court levels


35
Defendants who transfer between the Children's Courts and the Magistrates' or Higher Courts (or vice versa) are considered to be initiated twice (once in each court level) and finalised twice (once in each court level).

Higher Courts


36
Where a defendant finalised in a Higher Court has multiple charges and these have different methods of finalisation, the method of finalisation code applied to the defendants is determined by the following order of precedence:
  • defendant deceased
  • unfit to plead
  • not guilty by reason of mental illness/condition
  • guilty finding by court
  • charge proven n.f.d.
  • guilty plea by defendant
  • acquitted by court
  • charge unproven n.f.d.
  • charge unproven n.e.c.
  • transfer from a Higher Court to a Magistrates' Court
  • other transfer between court levels n.e.c.
  • transfer to non-court agency
  • withdrawn by the prosecution
  • other non-adjudicated finalisation n.e.c.
  • unknown/not stated.
Magistrates' Courts

37
Where a defendant finalised in a Magistrates' Court has multiple charges and these have different methods of finalisation, the defendant method of finalisation code is determined by the following order of precedence:
  • defendant deceased
  • unfit to plead
  • not guilty by reason of mental illness/condition
  • guilty finding by court
  • charge proven n.f.d.
  • guilty plea by defendant
  • guilty ex-parte
  • acquitted by court
  • charge unproven n.f.d.
  • no case to answer at committal
  • charge unproven n.e.c.
  • committed for trial
  • transfer from a Magistrates' Court to a Higher Court n.f.d.
  • committed for sentence
  • transfer from a Magistrates' Court to a Higher Court n.e.c.
  • other transfer between court levels n.e.c.
  • transfer to non-court agency
  • withdrawn by the prosecution
  • other non-adjudicated finalisation n.e.c.
  • unknown/not stated.
Children's Courts

38
Where a defendant finalised in a Children's Court has multiple charges and these have different methods of finalisation, the defendant method of finalisation code is determined by the following order of precedence:
  • defendant deceased
  • unfit to plead
  • not guilty by reason of mental illness/condition
  • guilty finding by court
  • charge proven n.f.d.
  • guilty plea by defendant
  • guilty ex-parte
  • acquitted by court
  • charge unproven n.f.d.
  • no case to answer at committal
  • charge unproven n.e.c.
  • committed for trial
  • transfer from a Children's Court to a Higher court n.f.d.
  • committed for sentence
  • transfer from a Children's Court to a Higher court n.e.c.
  • transfer from a Children's Court to a Magistrates' Court
  • other transfer between court levels n.e.c.
  • transfer to non-court agency
  • withdrawn by the prosecution
  • other non-adjudicated finalisation n.e.c.
  • unknown/not stated.
PRINCIPAL FEDERAL OFFENCE

39
Where a finalised defendant has multiple charges the principal federal offence is determined by:
  • the type of finalisation; and/or
  • the highest ranked ANZSOC using the NOI.
40 The type of finalisation is considered in the following order:
  • defendant deceased, unfit to plead, or not guilty by reason of mental illness
  • charges proven
  • charges not proven
  • transfer of charges
  • charges withdrawn
  • other non-adjudicated finalisation
  • unknown/not stated.
41 Where a defendant has a single charge within the type of finalisation (e.g. charges proven, charges not proven, transfer of charges etc.), the principal federal offence is the relevant ANZSOC code (refer to paragraph 22) associated with that charge.

42
Where a defendant has multiple charges, each with the same type of finalisation - for example, the defendant has been found guilty of all charges - the NOI is used to determine the principal federal offence. The principal federal offence is determined as the charge with the highest ranked ANZSOC Group in the NOI. Where the defendant has an offence that is unable to be determined via the NOI (due to missing offence information or the offence being mapped to an ANZSOC code that is not included in the NOI), and this offence cannot be determined as more or less serious than another offence within the same type of finalisation, the principal federal offence is coded to 'not able to be determined'. For more information about the NOI refer to paragraphs 23–25.

PRINCIPAL SENTENCE


43
Federal defendants who are proven guilty have sentence information reported at the offence level. A defendant can receive:
  • a single sentence for a single offence proven guilty;
  • a single sentence for multiple offences proven guilty;
  • multiple sentences for multiple offences proven guilty; and/or
  • multiple sentences assigned to the one offence proven guilty.
44 Where a defendant has multiple sentences, the principal sentence is selected by applying the hierarchy of the Sentence Type classification (see Appendix 3). This is usually, though not necessarily, the sentence associated with the principal offence.

45
It should be noted that not all sentence types are available to magistrates and judges in all jurisdictions. For example, in the Higher Courts, all states and territories with the exception of Western Australia have provision for the use of partially suspended imprisonment sentences. Whether a sentencing option is available in a particular state or territory and court level should be considered when making comparisons.

46
Defendants with a method of finalisation of 'not guilty by reason of mental illness/condition' (an acquitted outcome) may have a specific kind of sentence or order imposed on them by the court. However, these sentences are not within the scope of this collection as the definition of principal sentence, for the purpose of this collection, is that it only applies to defendants with a method of finalisation of proven guilty.

STATE AND TERRITORY SPECIFIC ISSUES


47
The following information highlights events or processes unique to a state/territory that may have impacted on the data for the Federal Defendants collection. For other state and territory specific issues that have impacted on the Criminal Courts collection more generally, refer to paragraphs 71–96 of the Explanatory Notes of Criminal Courts, Australia (cat. no. 4513.0) publication.

New South Wales


48
Duration from initiation to finalisation data for New South Wales Magistrates' and Children's Courts are based on the date of first appearance rather than the date of registration. New South Wales is unable to provide the date of registration as it is not captured in the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research's system, the system used to provide NSW Courts data to the ABS. This may impact on Duration from initiation to finalisation data and therefore caution should be used when making comparisons across states and territories.

Western Australia


49
In November 2013, Western Australia's Magistrates' and Children's Courts data were migrated to the Integrated Court Management System (ICMS). Data entry and extraction procedures on the ICMS vary from those of the previous recording system which have had an impact on several data items, most notably Method of finalisation. The expansion of outcome categories within the ICMS system enables greater accuracy in identifying defendants acquitted by the court as this is now specified as a final outcome type. This has led to an increase in the number of finalised defendants reported as Acquitted. The number of finalised defendants who were transferred also increased as a result of new processes for the transfer of charges from Magistrates' to Higher Courts in ICMS. Caution should therefore be used when making historical comparisons for these Methods of finalisation.

50
For 2013-14, Western Australia changed the way they provided Date of initiation data for the Magistrates' and Children's Courts. Previously, the date of first appearance was provided rather than the date of registration. In 2013-14, Western Australia provided the date of registration, bringing it in line with national reporting requirements. Caution should therefore be used when making historical comparisons, or comparing historical data with other states and territories.

Tasmania


51
The 2010–11 Federal Defendants collection included data for Tasmanian Magistrates' and Children's Courts only. From 2011–12, data for all court levels are included for Tasmania.

Northern Territory


52
Duration from initiation to finalisation data for the Northern Territory Magistrates' and Children's Courts are based on the date of first appearance rather than the date of registration. The Northern Territory is unable to provide the date of registration as it is not captured in their systems. This may impact on Duration from initiation to finalisation data and therefore caution should be used when making comparisons across states and territories.

53
In 2011–12 and 2012–13, a joint project between the NT Department of the Attorney-General and Justice and Police to clear up historic outstanding warrants and summons matters resulted in an increase in the number of finalisations. Other impacts include increases in the duration of cases and increases in the number of cases Withdrawn by the prosecution during the 2011–12 and 2012–13 reference periods. Caution should be used when making historical comparisons.

Australian Capital Territory


54
The Australian Capital Territory has a higher proportion of defendants with a principal federal offence of traffic offences than other states and territories. This is due to parking offences charged under the Australian National University Parking and Traffic Statute 2007.

COMPARISONS TO OTHER ABS DATA


Criminal Courts collection


55
Federal defendants are a subset of all defendants finalised in Australia's criminal courts. Information relating to all defendants finalised in the criminal courts are available in the publication Criminal Courts, Australia (cat. no. 4513.0). However, as a federal defendant may also be charged with state or territory offences, the difference between all finalised defendants in the criminal courts and finalised federal defendants does not equal the count of defendants charged with state or territory offences.

COMPARISONS TO NON-ABS SOURCES


56
Due to differing scope and counting rules the data in this publication may not be comparable to data published in other national or state and territory publications.

CONFIDENTIALITY OF TABULAR DATA


57
The Census and Statistics Act 1905 provides the authority for the ABS to collect statistical information, and requires that statistical output not be published or disseminated in a manner that is likely to enable the identification of a particular person or organisation. The requirement means that the ABS must ensure that any statistical information about individuals cannot be derived from published data. To minimise the risk of identifying individuals in aggregate statistics, a technique is used to randomly adjust cell values and summary variables. This technique is called perturbation and has been applied to the Federal Defendants collection for the first time for the 2013-14 reference period. Perturbation involves the small random adjustment of the statistics and is considered the most satisfactory technique for avoiding the release of identifiable statistics, while maximising the range of information that can be released. These adjustments have a negligible impact on the underlying pattern of the statistics.

58
After perturbation, a given published cell value will be consistent across all tables. However, the sum of the components of a total will not necessarily give the same result as the published total in a particular table. As such, proportions may add to more or less than 100%. Readers are advised to use the published totals rather than deriving totals based on the component cells. Cells with small values may be proportionally more affected by perturbation than large values. Users are advised against conducting analyses and drawing conclusions based on small values.

59
Perturbation has been applied to all data in the Federal Defendants collection from 2010-11 onwards. Previously, a different technique was used to confidentialise the data and therefore there may be small differences between historical data presented in this issue of the publication and those published in previous issues.

RELATED PUBLICATIONS

ABS publications

60
Current publications and other products released by the ABS are listed on the ABS website. The ABS also issues a daily release advice on the website which details products to be released in the week ahead. For a listing of ABS publications relating to crime and justice statistics, refer to the Related Information tab.

Non-ABS publications

61
Non-ABS sources of criminal court statistics which may be of interest include: FEDERAL DEFENDANTS SUPPLEMENTARY RELEASE

62 For the first time, in addition to presenting data by the Australian and New Zealand Standard Offence Classification (ANZSOC), counts of finalised federal defendants are presented by Federal offence group, the alternative offence grouping to ANZSOC.

Federal Offence Group

63 The Federal offence group classifies Commonwealth Acts and Sections into broad categories that are of a particular interest to users. The Federal offence group is not a standard ABS classification and is not related to the ANZSOC. Each Federal offence group may comprise a range of offences that reside in a number of different ANZSOC Divisions. For more information about the groups, including definitions, which Acts have been mapped to each group, and which ANZSOC Divisions are comprised in each group, refer to Appendix 4.

64 Caution should be used when comparing Federal offence group data with previous years. In 2011–12, a major revision of the Federal offence group was undertaken. The number of categories was expanded, and there was extensive re-mapping of groups to the new categories. In 2012-13, further refinements were made and data for 2011-12 were revised accordingly. See Explanatory Notes of the 2011–12 and 2012–13 issues of this publication for details of these changes.

65 In 2013–14, another review of the Federal offence group was undertaken. The process of assigning Commonwealth Acts and Sections to the corresponding groups was simplified by assigning most Acts at the Act level only, rather than at the more detailed Section level. The exception to this was the Criminal Code Act 1995, Crimes Act 1914 and Migration Act 1958 where Section level information was taken into consideration. The Federal offence groups most impacted by these changes were Child sexual exploitation offences, Import/export offences and Security offences. This revision applies to 2013-14 data only. Data for previous years have not been revised.

Principal Federal Offence Group

66 In order to output the Federal offence group at the defendant level, a principal group has been derived by selecting the group associated with the principal federal offence. For more information on how the principal federal offence is derived, refer to paragraphs 39-42.

67 Where there is more than one Federal offence group associated with an offence, a hierarchy is used to derive the most serious group. This hierarchy has been based on the hierarchy used to derive the principal federal offence, ie. the National Offence Index (NOI). For more information on the NOI, refer to paragraphs 23-25.

Federal Offences

68 The secondary counting unit for the Federal Defendants collection is the federal offence. Rather than apply an order of precedence to the offences for each defendant (to enable the defendant to be represented by one principal federal offence) the Federal Defendants collection allows for the counting of all federal offences finalised. Federal offences have been presented by ANZSOC in Table 24 and the Federal offence group in Table 25 in the data cubes.

69 Note that some federal offences will be counted more than once for a proven guilty offence if more than one sentence is handed down. Therefore the count of federal offences may be overstated.