NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE (QUARTER)	Release Date
December 2014	26 March 2015
March 2015	11 June 2015

ABOUT THIS PUBLICATION

This publication presents information on persons in custody and persons serving community-based corrections orders under the authority of corrective services agencies. The statistics are derived from information provided to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) from administrative records held by corrective services agencies in each state and territory, and from the Australian Government Attorney-General's Department for details on federal prisoners. Details are provided for each state and territory on: prisoner numbers and imprisonment rates by type of custody; prisoner numbers by legal status for all prisoners and for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoners; the number of sentenced receptions into custody; the number of federal prisoners; the number and rate of persons serving community-based corrections orders; and data on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander status of persons in community-based corrections.

The ABS acknowledges the valuable contribution of the Board of Management and the Advisory Group of the National Corrective Services Statistics Unit as well as the staff of the various agencies that provide the statistics that are presented in this publication.

CHANGES TO AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY (ACT) COMMUNITY-BASED CORRECTIONS DATA

The ACT has changed its counting methodology for persons serving community-based corrections orders from the September Quarter 2014 onwards. This means that persons who have completed their community-based corrections orders prior to the order expiry date will no longer be counted in community-based corrections counts, as was done in previous quarters. The specific community-based corrections orders affected include parole, bail and sentenced probation.

This change means that any comparisons of ACT parole, bail and sentenced probation data, as well as total persons serving community-based corrections orders in the ACT, between the 2014 September quarter onwards and previous quarters should be made with caution.

This change will also have consequential impacts on the national data for these community-based corrections orders from the September Quarter 2014. Caution should be used when comparing with previous national data for parole, bail and sentenced probation orders.

ROUNDING

The figures in this publication may be subject to rounding.


FURTHER INFORMATION

More information about ABS activities in the field of crime and justice statistics is available from the Crime and Justice theme page on the ABS website <www.abs.gov.au>. Details of other ABS publications relating to Crime and Justice statistics can be found in the Related Information tab.


INQUIRIES

For further information about these and related statistics, contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070. The Privacy Policy outlines how the ABS will handle any personal information that you provide to us.