PEOPLE IN CUSTODY

Adult prisoners

The annual National Prisoner Census, conducted on the night of 30 June, counts all people held in Australian prisons that are in the legal custody of adult corrective services, including periodic detainees in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, but excluding persons held in juvenile institutions, psychiatric custody and police custody. At any given point in time, most prisoners are serving long sentences for relatively serious offences, but the flow of offenders in and out of prisons consists primarily of people serving short sentences for less serious offences.

At 30 June 2008, there were 27,615 prisoners (sentenced and unsentenced) in Australian adult prisons. This represented an imprisonment rate of 169 prisoners per 100,000 adult population. Of the total prisoner population, 93% (25,658) were men and 7% (1,957) were women.

Most (55% or 15,154) prisoners had served time in an adult prison prior to the current episode.

Unsentenced prisoners include prisoners awaiting a court hearing or trial and convicted prisoners awaiting sentencing. Unsentenced adult prisoners comprised 23% (6,340) of the total prisoner population.

Acts intended to cause injury was the most serious offence/charge which accounted for the largest proportion of adult prisoners (18% or 5,008 prisoners).

There were 6,706 Indigenous prisoners at 30 June 2008, comprising 24% of the total prisoner population. The age-standardised Indigenous imprisonment rate was 1,769 prisoners per 100,000 adult Indigenous population, 13 times more than the non-Indigenous rate (133 prisoners per 100,000 adult non-Indigenous population) (table 13.23).

The median age of male prisoners was 33 years, and 34 years for female prisoners.

13.23 ADULT PRISONERS, Selected characteristics by most serious offence/charge - 30 June 2008
			Homicide and related offences	Acts intended to cause injury	Sexual assault and related offences	Robbery, extortion and related offences	Unlawful entry with intent	Illicit drug offences	Other offences(a)	Total(a)
All prisoners		no.	2 712	5 008	3 411	2 682	3 138	2 885	7 779	27 615
	Males	no.	2 499	4 673	3 381	2 550	2 951	2 586	7 018	25 658
	Females	no.	213	335	30	132	187	299	761	1 957
Indigenous		no.	429	2 107	715	597	927	112	1 819	6 706
Non-Indigenous		no.	2 263	2 856	2 682	2 063	2 202	2 694	5 901	20 661
Unknown		no.	20	45	14	22	9	79	59	248
Median age
	Males	years	38	30	43	29	30	37	33	33
	Females	years	37	31	42	28	29	37	35	34
	Indigenous	years	35	30	36	27	27	35	30	30
	Non-Indigenous	years	39	31	45	29	31	37	34	35
Sentenced		no.	2 220	3 357	2 880	1 988	2 404	2 076	6 350	21 275
Unsentenced		no.	492	1 651	531	694	734	809	1 429	6 340
Prior imprisonment(b)		no.	1 063	3 089	1 186	1 617	2 337	1 003	4 859	15 154
No prior imprisonment(b)		no.	1 649	1 919	2 225	1 065	801	1 882	2 920	12 461
(a) Includes Australian Standard Offence Classification Divisions 04, 05, 08, 09 and 11 to 16.
(b) Refers to prior imprisonment under sentence.
Source: ABS Prisoners in Australia (4517.0).

The 20-29 year age group had the highest proportion of male prisoners (35% or 8,903 men), while the corresponding age group for women was 30-39 years (35% or 676 women) (graph 13.24).

Most serious offence

At 30 June 2008, six offence types accounted for 71% of adult sentenced prisoners: acts intended to cause injury (16%); sexual assault and related offences (14%); unlawful entry with intent (11%); homicide and related offences; illicit drug and related offences; and offences against justice procedures (all 10%) (table 13.25).

13.25 SENTENCED PRISONERS, By most serious offence - 30 June 2008
	Males	Females	Persons
Homicide and related offences	2 062	158	2 220
Acts intended to cause injury	3 150	207	3 357
Sexual assault and related offences	2 857	23	2 880
Dangerous or negligent acts endangering persons	368	15	383
Abduction and related offences	143	11	154
Robbery, extortion and related offences	1 907	81	1 988
Unlawful entry with intent/burglary, break and enter	2 281	123	2 404
Theft and related offences	737	118	855
Deception and related offences	489	172	661
Illicit drug offences	1 870	206	2 076
Weapons and explosives offences	140	5	145
Property damage and environmental pollution	225	18	243
Public order offences	239	19	258
Road traffic and motor vehicle regulatory offences	1 259	65	1 324
Offences against justice procedures, government security and government operations	1 898	168	2 066
Miscellaneous offences	236	21	257
Unknown	4	-	4
Total	19 865	1 410	21 275
- nil or rounded to zero (including null cells)
Source: ABS Prisoners in Australia (4517.0).

There were notable differences in some most serious offence types for which men and women were imprisoned. Though similar proportions of male and female prisoners had homicide and related offences as their most serious offence (10% and 11% respectively), the proportion of male prisoners was higher than that for women prisoners for sexual assault and related offences (14% of male prisoners, 2% of female prisoners) and robbery, extortion and related offences (10% of male prisoners, 6% of female prisoners). There were higher proportions of women prisoners than male prisoners for the following offence types: deception and related offences (12% of women prisoners, 3% of male prisoners); and illicit drug offences (15% of women prisoners, 9% of male prisoners) (graph 13.26).

Sentence length

Aggregate length of sentence is derived by taking into account the longest period for which a convicted prisoner may be detained as a result of a sentence or sentences imposed by a criminal court for an offence or multiple offences in a current episode.

At 30 June 2008, the average aggregate sentence length for all adult prisoners sentenced to a specific term was 59.1 months or nearly 5 years, while the average expected time to serve was 42.3 months or 3.5 years. The average aggregate sentence length excludes prisoners who receive indeterminate, life with a minimum, or periodic detention sentences, whilst the expected time to serve takes into account the earliest date of release for sentenced prisoners (graph 13.27).

Young people in detention

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) collects information from each state and territory on behalf of the Australasian Juvenile Justice Administrators about the numbers and characteristics of young people under the supervision of juvenile justice agencies.

Excluding New South Wales, in 2007-08, 3,378 young people were held in juvenile detention. Most detainees (84%) were male. Just under half of the young detainee population were identified as Indigenous. Note, a young person may have been in custody more than once during the reference period (table 13.28).

13.28 YOUNG PERSONS IN DETENTION(a)(b), By combined selected states and territories(b) - 2007-08
	no.
All young people	3 378
Males	2 831
Females	547
Indigenous	1 591
Non-Indigenous	1 743
Unknown	44
Sentenced	986
Unsentenced	2 939
Both sentenced and unsentenced	85
(a) As young people may have appeared more than once during the financial year, components may not sum to totals.
(b) Data excludes New South Wales, as data were not available.
Source: AIHW (2009) Juvenile Justice in Australia, 2007-08. Cat. No. JUV5.

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