4512.0 - Corrective Services, Australia, Dec 2004
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 30/03/2005
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INTRODUCTION
3 Although national standards and classifications are used in the compilation of these statistics, some discrepancies remain between the states and territories. These are due to legislative and procedural differences between jurisdictions and the way that these differences are reflected in agencies' administrative data systems. As part of its quality assurance strategy, the ABS is working with corrective services agencies to minimise the effect of these differences. REFERENCE PERIOD/DATE 4 The reference period for average daily prisoner population statistics and sentenced reception counts is the complete reference month. Prior to the December quarter 2004, average daily statistics for Australian Capital Territory prisoners held in New South Wales could not be supplied, and a single count taken on a specific day of the month was used instead. The reference date for all other figures is the first day of the reference month. However, not all states and territories report strictly according to this 'first day of the month' rule:
5 Calculation of figures for the entire quarter and entire year varies depending on the counting unit and method of counting prisoners. These figures may be subject to rounding:
SCOPE 6 The scope of the statistics in this publication includes all persons remanded or sentenced to adult custodial corrective services agencies (including Work Outreach Camps and Community Custody Centres in Queensland), or who are serving adult community-based orders in each state and territory in Australia. 7 Counts of prisoners in the following custodial facilities are included in the collection:
8 The prisons and community corrections collection excludes the following custodial facilities:
9 This collection includes counts of persons remanded or sentenced to adult custody facilities, or directed to serve community based orders administered by adult corrective service agencies. In all states and territories except Victoria and Queensland, persons are considered adults if aged 18 years and over. In Victoria and Queensland persons are considered adults if aged 17 years and over. The vast majority of persons counted in the collection are adults, however, juveniles may be included in exceptional circumstances. 10 Federal prisoners include those persons charged and sentenced under a Commonwealth statute, and those persons who are charged and sentenced under the laws of another country, but transferred to an Australian prison to serve their sentence under the International Transfer of Prisoners Act 1997 (Cwlth). To give practical effect to this legislation in Australia, the framework was introduced in January 2003. For the purposes of this publication, federal sentenced prisoners are those persons who are recognised by the Criminal Law Division of the Australian Government Attorney-General's Department as having been charged and sentenced under a Commonwealth statute, or transferred from another country to serve their sentence in Australia. 11 Community-based corrections includes those persons with breached or suspended orders, with the exception of Victoria and Tasmania. DATA SOURCE 12 Statistics in this publication are derived from information provided to the ABS from administrative records held by corrective services agencies within each state and territory. Statistics on federal prisoners are derived from records kept by the Criminal Law Division of the Australian Government Attorney-General's Department. 13 Tasmanian first day of month data for reference periods prior to the September quarter 2003 are under enumerated. Data are currently being investigated and may be revised. Prior to January 2004, sentenced reception figures for Tasmania do not include all prisoners changing from unsentenced custody to sentenced custody. 14 New South Wales community-based corrections data are subject to ongoing quality assurance processes undertaken in this state. Prior to the September quarter 2003, pre-sentence reports were omitted from reported bail figures. Bail figures relating to earlier reference periods are under enumerated. 15 A revised method for determining Queensland fine default only sentences has been used from the September quarter 2004. Data on fine default only sentences for earlier reference periods have been compiled on different bases and historical comparisons should be made with caution. COUNTING RULES 16 Statistics for persons held in custody are presented by the state or territory in which they are held, which may not be the sentencing jurisdiction. The only exception to this are data for federal sentenced prisoners. These are presented by the state or territory in which they were sentenced, not where they were held in custody. 17 Sentenced prisoners who have other offences which are unsentenced are counted as sentenced. Prisoners may be unsentenced because they are awaiting the outcome of their trial, convicted but awaiting sentence, or awaiting deportation. 18 Prisoners who are serving fine default sentences concurrently with other sentences of imprisonment are counted under the other sentenced type and not as fine default only prisoners. Offenders serving fine default sentences while on remand for other offences are counted as sentenced fine default only prisoners. 19 If an offender has two or more different types of community-based orders operating simultaneously, then each order will be counted. If two or more community-based orders are of the same type, these orders together will only be counted as one order. INDIGENOUS IDENTIFICATION 20 In all states and territories persons are asked during entry into custody whether they are of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander origin. It is uncommon for corrective services agencies to collect Indigenous status information from sources other than the person's own identification. 21 Some persons in custody are recorded as of unknown Indigenous status on the information systems of corrective services agencies, but unknown Indigenous status data have not been provided for this collection. Such persons are designated as non-Indigenous. It is intended that unknown Indigenous status will be collected from these systems in future. AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY PRISONERS 22 The Australian Capital Territory has two remand centres for unsentenced prisoners and a periodic detention centre. In January 1999, the Australian Capital Territory corrections commenced sending some unsentenced prisoners to New South Wales prisons. With the exception of some sentenced fine default only prisoners, persons sentenced to full-time custody by Australian Capital Territory criminal courts are held in New South Wales prisons. During 2000 the Australian Capital Territory commenced detaining prisoners sentenced for fine default only at their centre for unsentenced persons. 23 To provide greater understanding of the number of prisoners attributed to the Australian Capital Territory, while presenting an accurate picture of the New South Wales prisoner population, statistics relating to Australian Capital Territory prisoners in New South Wales prisons are presented as a subset of the New South Wales figures. 24 Imprisonment rate data for the Australian Capital Territory are included in the publication and are calculated on the basis of the total number of Australian Capital Territory prisoners (i.e. Australian Capital Territory prisoners held in New South Wales prisons, and Australian Capital Territory prisoners held in the Australian Capital Territory) divided by the estimated resident Australian Capital Territory adult population and multiplied by 100,000. For New South Wales, the imprisonment rate is based on the count of New South Wales prisoners, excluding Australian Capital Territory prisoners held in New South Wales prisons, divided by the estimated resident New South Wales adult population and multiplied by 100,000. Time series data have also been derived on this basis. RATES 25 Imprisonment and community-based corrections rates enable comparisons of prisoner numbers to be made across states and territories. Prisoner and community-based corrections rates are expressed per 100,000 adult population. 26 In this publication the population figures used in the calculation of rates are for persons aged 18 years and over for all states and territories except Victoria and Queensland where the population used is of persons aged 17 years and over (see Explanatory Notes, paragraph 9). 27 Rates for the total adult prisoner population and persons in community-based corrections are calculated using the estimated resident population for each of the states and territories (refer Australian Demographic Statistics (cat. no. 3101.0)). All estimates for the Australian Capital Territory exclude Jervis Bay Territory. All estimates for Australia exclude the external territories of Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Island. As the population changes over time the denominator used for the calculation of rates varies, depending on the reference period. Rates are calculated using the ERP for two quarters prior to their respective quarters. Thus for this quarter, the ERP for the June quarter 2004 was used in the calculation of rates. This approach uses the latest ERP available at the time of publication. 28 In previous issues of this publication rates for the adult Indigenous imprisonment population were presented based on projections from Experimental Projections of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Population, 30 June 1996 to 30 June 2006 (cat. no. 3231.0). These projections were based on the results of the 1996 Census of Population and Housing. A new set of projections for the Indigenous population, based on the 2001 Census of Population and Housing, was released on 27 September 2004 in the publication Experimental Estimates and Projections, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, 30 June 1991 to 30 June 2009 (cat. no. 3238.0). In future issues of this publication, adult Indigenous imprisonment rates (including the revision of previously published rates) will be published using population projections based on the 2001 Census of Population and Housing. SIGNIFICANT EVENTS 29 The Maryborough Correctional Centre, Queensland, was officially opened in April 2003. The Centre has the capacity to hold 500 prisoners. 30 During 2002 the following factors in Western Australia impacted on the prisoner population: an increase in the acquittal and dismissal rates in courts; greater use by the courts of suspended imprisonment and community orders as penalties; and a decrease in the breach rate for early release orders. The impact of these factors has been proportionally greater on the number of Indigenous prisoners who tend to be convicted of offences which attract shorter sentences. 31 During 2003 in Western Australia there was an increase in the number of Indigenous persons sentenced to imprisonment by the courts, mostly in relation to 'Driving/Traffic', 'Against the Person' and 'Justice/Good Order' offences. 32 A range of amendments to Western Australian corrections legislation came into effect in 2003 and 2004. As a result of these, bail figures were included for the first time in Western Australia in the December quarter 2003. Prior to the September quarter 2004, counts of restricted movement orders included conditional bail orders (which may have a restricted movement condition). All conditional bail orders are now counted as bail orders. 33 During the March and June quarters of 2002, Tasmania recorded a large increase in the number of unsentenced prisoners. This overall increase was due to an increase in lodgments in the Supreme Court coupled with the move by police to more actively oppose bail. The variation over the period is explained primarily by the availability of judicial resources. A Supreme Court judge was allocated to a long running trial in the March and June quarters of 2002 - this represented 25% of the judicial resources allocated to crime by the court. There was also a reduction in the number of magistrates available in the Court of Petty Sessions due to a number of long running coronial inquests. 34 In the Northern Territory, over the 12 months to 30 June 2003, there has been an increase in the number of Indigenous persons sentenced to imprisonment for a range of assault and driving offences. RELATED PUBLICATIONS ABS Publications 35 Other ABS publications which may be of interest include: Australian Demographic Statistics (cat. no. 3101.0) - issued quarterly Australian Social Trends (cat. no. 4102.0) - issued annually Australian Standard Offence Classification (cat. no.1234.0) - irregular Crime and Safety, Australia (cat. no. 4509.0) - irregular Criminal Courts, Australia (cat. no. 4513.0) - issued annually General Social Survey: Summary Results, Australia (cat. no. 4159.0) - irregular Information Paper: Measuring Crime Victimisation, Australia: The Impact of Different Collection Methodologies (cat. no. 4522.0.55.001) - single issue Measures of Australia's Progress (cat. no. 1370.0) - issued annually Prisoners in Australia (cat. no. 4517.0) - issued annually Recorded Crime - Victims, Australia (cat. no. 4510.0) - issued annually Sexual Assault in Australia: A Statistical Overview (cat. no. 4523.0) - single issue Year Book Australia (cat. no. 1301.0) - issued annually 36 The Information Paper: Measuring Crime Victimisation, Australia: The Impact of Different Collection Methodologies (cat. no. 4522.0.55.001) was released by the ABS in 2004. The main aim of this paper is to increase community understanding of the nature of crime measurement in Australia and why the findings from different data sources may differ. The paper outlines national crime victimisation statistics available from several different sources in the Australian context and draws comparisons between the statistics from these sources. The paper also describes methodological differences between survey sources and the possible impacts of the methodological differences between the survey vehicles. 37 Current publications and other products released by the ABS are listed in the Catalogue of Publications and Products (cat. no. 1101.0). The Catalogue is available from this ABS web site. The ABS also issues a daily Release Advice on the web site which details products to be released in the week ahead. The National Centre for Crime and Justice Statistics releases a biannual newsletter that is published on the ABS web site. The Centre can be contacted by email through <crime.justice@abs.gov.au>. Non-ABS Publications 38 Non-ABS sources which may be of interest include: Australian Institute of Criminology, List of Publications <http://www.aic.gov.au> Crime Research Centre, University of Western Australia, Crime and Justice Statistics for Western Australia Department of Corrective Services, New South Wales, NSW Inmate Census Department of Justice, Northern Territory, Northern Territory Quarterly Crime and Justice Statistics Department of Justice, Victoria, Statistical Profile of the Victorian Prison System NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, New South Wales Criminal Courts Statistics Office of Crime Statistics and Research, South Australia, Crime and Justice in South Australia Steering Committee for the Review of Commonwealth/State Service Provision, Report on Government Services Document Selection These documents will be presented in a new window.
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