4513.0 - Criminal Courts, Australia, 2006-07

ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 25/01/2008

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Explanatory Notes Glossary Abbreviations Method of Finalisation Classification (Appendix 1) Australian Standard Offence Classification (Appendix 2) National Offence Index (Appendix 3) Sentence Type Classification (Appendix 4) Quality Declaration - Summary Quality Declaration - Institutional Environment Quality Declaration - Accuracy Data Cubes (I-Note) Data Source	EXPLANATORY NOTES INTRODUCTION 1 This publication presents information on the characteristics of defendants dealt with by Australian state and territory criminal courts. This includes information on the offences and sentences associated with those defendants. Refer to Explanatory Notes paragraphs 38-42 for further information. 2 Information relates to the criminal jurisdiction of the Higher (Supreme and Intermediate), Magistrates' and Children's Courts in each state and territory. The criminal jurisdiction of the courts includes the trial and sentencing of persons and organisations charged with criminal offences in Australia. 3 Given the high degree of conceptual complexity in the operation of the courts systems in Australia, and the variation in the capacity of the states and territories to supply statistical information, this publication presents results from several development stages of this collection. Information relating to criminal cases heard in the Higher (Supreme and Intermediate) Courts has been available since the mid 1990's. Information about defendants finalised in the Magistrates' Courts is available from 2003-04 onwards. Information about defendants finalised in the Children's Courts is available nationally for the first time from 2006-07. Experimental data were available from 2004-05. DATA SOURCE 4 National statistics are derived from data about each defendant provided to the ABS by the state and territory agencies responsible for courts administration. The ABS receives data directly from these agencies in all states and territories except for Queensland (where data are supplied via the Office of Economic and Statistical Research), 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, the statistics have been compiled according to national standards and classifications. Standardisation of data requires the states and territories to provide data coded according to national classifications and standards. For more information refer to paragraphs 20-21 of the Explanatory Notes. SCOPE 6 The scope of the statistics in this publication includes all defendants who have been finalised in either the Higher, Magistrates' or Children's Courts. 7 The criminal courts collection is limited to defendants finalised. The numbers of defendants finalised can be impacted by the use of diversionary programs that can be initiated by police and other agencies (pre-court) and/or by the courts themselves as part of the court process. Given a major part of the juvenile justice system is to divert young people away from the more formal justice system, the use of diversionary schemes are likely to be used more often in the Children's Courts. The types of pre-court programs include (but are not limited to) warnings (both informal and formal), cautions, police drug diversions and conferencing. 8 A number of court programs relate to the transfer of defendants to drug and other specialist courts (these defendants are considered finalised in the courts that recommended the transfer), and those court programs where the defendant returns to the court that requested the transfer upon completion of the program. Generally, the latter are grouped into two types of programs, 'pre-adjudication' (initiated prior to hearing the facts of a case) and 'post-adjudication' (initiated once the defendant is found guilty or the defendant has entered a plea of guilty, but prior to sentencing). In addition, there are also court programs where a referral is used as a sentencing outcome. 9 The geographic definition of Australia, as used by the ABS, includes Other Territories (OT). However, these territories are generally out of scope for ABS collections. For the Criminal Courts data, defendants in Higher, Magistrates' and Children's Courts cases heard in the criminal courts on Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Christmas Island are included in the counts for Western Australia, where applicable. Defendants in Jervis Bay Territory are not included in any counts in this publication. Higher Courts 10 Data includes defendants finalised in the original jurisdiction of the Supreme and Intermediate Criminal Courts. Children treated as adults by the courts are included in the collection. Magistrates' Courts 11 Data includes defendants finalised in the original jurisdiction of the Magistrates' Criminal Courts. Children treated as adults by the courts are included in the collection. 12 These data include defendants finalised (i.e. a person for whom all charges have been formally completed so that the defendant ceases to be an item of work to be dealt with) in the Magistrates' Courts for all states and territories except New South Wales whose data represents finalised appearances. Therefore, where charges were finalised at different court appearances in the same case for a defendant in New South Wales, these were counted as finalised defendants at each appearance rather than being aggregated as a single finalised defendant at the latest charge finalisation date. This may result in increased counts for New South Wales. Children's Courts 13 Data includes defendants finalised in the original jurisdiction of the Children's Criminal Courts with the exception of New South Wales whose data represents finalised appearances. See Explanatory Note 12. 14 In all states and territories, children aged under 10 years cannot be charged with a criminal offence. The maximum age that defendants are considered a child or juvenile is under the age of 18 years in all states and territories, except Queensland. In Queensland, defendants are considered adults if aged 17 years and over at the time the offence was committed. 15 Some examples of court initiated programs include: Victoria - Group Conference, Ropes Program Queensland - Youth Justice Conferencing, Illicit Drug Court Diversion Program South Australia - Family conferences, Youth CARDS (Court Assessment and Referral Drug Scheme) Western Australia - Juvenile Justice Teams, Drug Court Tasmania - Court Ordered Community Conference Australian Capital Territory - Restorative Justice. Exclusions 16 The Higher, Magistrates' and Children's Courts data exclude cases heard in the criminal jurisdiction of the courts which do not require the adjudication of charges (e.g. bail reviews and applications to amend sentences or penalties). Also excluded are breach of bail or parole cases, appeal cases, tribunal matters and defendants for whom a bench warrant is issued but not executed. 17 The Magistrates' Courts data exclude defendants finalised in the Drug Courts, Electronic Courts, Fine Recovery Units, Family Violence Courts and Indigenous Courts. 18 The Children's Courts data exclude defendants finalised in the Drug Courts, Electronic Courts, Fine Recovery Units, Family Violence Courts and Indigenous Courts. REFERENCE PERIOD 19 The statistics in this collection relate to defendants who had criminal cases finalised within the Higher, Magistrates' and Children's Courts during the reference period 1 July 2006 to 30 June 2007. CLASSIFICATIONS 20 The main national classifications used to collect and produce data on defendants in the Criminal Courts are: Method of Finalisation (see Appendix 1) Australian Standard Offence Classification (ASOC) 1997 (refer to paragraphs 22-23 of the Explanatory Notes and Appendix 2) National Offence Index (NOI) (refer to paragraphs 24-25 of the Explanatory Notes and Appendix 3) Sentence Type (refer to paragraph 42 of the Explanatory Notes and Appendix 4). 21 The classifications provide a framework for classifying criminal court information for statistical purposes, promoting data that are compiled on a consistent basis across states and territories. The classifications have a hierarchical structure and therefore allow for different levels of detail to be recorded depending on the level of detail 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 Standard Offence Classification (ASOC) 22 The ASOC provides a uniform national classificatory framework for classifying offences across Australia. 23 Offence data have been coded to the ASOC on the basis of mappings of state/territory legislative codes undertaken by various agencies within those states and territories. National Offence Index (NOI) 24 The National Offence Index (see Appendix 3) is a ranking of all ASOC Groups and selected supplementary ASOC codes (ASOC Divisions and/or ASOC Subdivisions). This ranking is based on the concept of seriousness, with a ranking of 1 relating to the ASOC code containing the most serious offence. 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 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 (see paragraph 41). For example, although some sexual assault and related offences are ranked ahead of illicit drug and related offences, they are unlikely to co-occur. For further information regarding the development of the NOI please refer to Appendix 5 in Criminal Courts, Australia, 2001-02 (cat. no. 4513.0). NATIONAL CRIMINAL COURTS DATA DICTIONARY 26 A data dictionary is an agreed set of classifications and standards that is accepted as the authoritative source for a particular area of statistics. The National Criminal Courts Data Dictionary, Version 1, 2005 (cat. no. 4527.0) has been developed by the National Criminal Courts Statistics Unit (NCCSU) of the ABS in collaboration with key stakeholders. It is a reference document which defines national data items and outlines methods for the use of 27 data elements and concepts that underpin the ABS and Council of Australian Governments (COAG) criminal courts collections. Version 1 of the data dictionary relates to the Higher and Magistrates' Criminal Courts. The National Criminal Courts Data Dictionary can be accessed via the ABS website. COUNTING METHODOLOGY Counting unit 27 The principal counting unit for the Criminal Courts collection is a 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 Criminal Courts collection does not enumerate unique persons or organisations. If a person or organisation is a defendant in a number of criminal cases finalised within the courts during the reference period, this person or organisation will be counted more than once within that reference period. Method of finalisation 28 Method of finalisation describes how a criminal charge is concluded by a criminal court level. For the purposes of the Criminal Courts collection, one method of finalisation is applied to each defendant within the Higher, Magistrates' and Children's Courts. 29 Prior to 2002-03, a bench warrant issued was considered a method of finalisation. From the 2002-03 reference period, this is no longer considered a method of finalisation for a defendant in the Higher Courts. This is treated as a continuation of a defendants' case and will impact on the duration of that case i.e. time elapsed from date of initiation to date of finalisation. This aligns with the Magistrates' Courts and Children's Courts collections which do not include a bench warrant issued as a method of finalisation. Once a bench warrant has been executed and the outstanding (and new) charges have been determined, the defendant is regarded as being finalised (by a method of finalisation other than a bench warrant being issued) and is included in data for the relevant reference period in which the defendant is finalised. 30 Defendants who are referred to a Mental Health Review Tribunal (e.g. for determination of fitness for trial) are not considered to be finalised. Transfer between Higher Court levels 31 Defendants who transfer from one Higher Court level to another are considered as initiated only once (in the level they first entered) and finalised only once (from the level they finally left). Transfer between Magistrates' and Higher Court levels 32 Defendants who transfer from the Magistrates' Court level to the Higher Court level are considered as initiated twice (once in each of these levels) and finalised twice (once in each level). Defendants may have some charges finalised in the Magistrates' Courts whilst other charges are committed to the Higher Courts. A defendant in this situation would be counted in the Magistrates' Courts data and the Higher Courts data. Transfers between the Children's Courts and the Magistrates' or Higher Courts 33 Defendants who transfer between the Children's Courts and the Magistrates' or Higher Courts are considered to be initiated and finalised in each court level where they appear. Higher Courts 34 Where a defendant finalised in a Higher 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 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 35 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 36 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. Merging counting units 37 Where a person or organisation is a defendant in more than one case, and their cases are finalised on the same date, in the same court level and in the same court location, 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. Principal offence adjudicated 38 Principal offence is only calculated for adjudicated defendants. Charges considered for the purpose of determining the principal offence are only those charges that have an adjudicated method of finalisation (i.e. where the defendant has pleaded guilty or the court has made a decision as to whether or not the defendant is guilty). Principal offence for charges that have been transferred to another level of court, and those that are withdrawn or dealt with by some other non-adjudicated method is not available. 39 For a defendant who has a method of finalisation of proven guilty (resulting from a guilty verdict, guilty plea or guilty ex-parte), the principal offence is selected from the charge(s) proven guilty (i.e. acquitted charges are not considered). For a defendant who has a method of finalisation of acquitted, the principal offence is selected from the charge(s) acquitted. 40 Where a defendant has a single proven guilty or acquitted charge, the principal offence is the relevant ASOC code (see paragraphs 22-23) associated with the adjudicated charge. 41 Where a defendant has a method of finalisation of proven guilty with multiple charges proven guilty, or where a defendant has a method of finalisation of acquitted with multiple charges acquitted, the principal offence is selected by applying the National Offence Index (see paragraphs 24-25). The principal offence is determined as the adjudicated charge with the highest ranked ASOC Group in the Index. Where the defendant has an adjudicated charge but is unable to receive an Index ranking (due to missing offence information or the offence is mapped to an ASOC code that is not included in the Index) the principal offence is coded to 'not able to be determined'. Principal sentence 42 Within this publication, defendants who are proven guilty have sentence information reported against them at the defendant level. This is usually, though not necessarily, the sentence associated with the principal offence. 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. Where a defendant has multiple sentences, the principal sentence is selected by applying the hierarchy of the Sentence Type Classification (see Appendix 4). COMPARABILITY 43 Caution should be exercised when comparing 2006-07 Children's Courts data to earlier years as data prior to this period was deemed experimental and may not be strictly comparable. 44 The Criminal Courts collection has been designed to facilitate comparisons over time and across states and territories through the application of common national statistical standards. However, some legislative and processing differences may limit the degree to which the statistics are comparable across the states and territories. Differences may also arise as a result of other factors, including refinements in data quality procedures and modifications in the systems used to obtain and compile the figures. See paragraphs 55-78 for specific state and territory issues. REVISIONS 45 Queensland data for all court levels for 2005-06 have been revised. Caution should be taken when making comparisons of data prior to 2005-06 (see paragraph 62). COMPARISONS TO NON-ABS SOURCES 46 Due to differing scope and counting rules the data in this publication may not be comparable to data published in other national and state/territory publications. Report on Government Services 47 The Report on Government Services, commissioned by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG), was established to provide information on the performance of Australian and state and territory government services. The Report releases data annually on the efficiency and effectiveness of the administration of the courts, sourcing data from the Court Administration Data Collection (CADC) on a financial year basis. It does not release data on the outcomes of the judicial process. 48 The focus of the CADC is on the administration of the courts, including workload and financial information, while the ABS criminal courts collection has a social theme, painting a picture of the characteristics of defendants, including information on the offences and sentence types associated with those defendants. Whilst the classifications and standards for both collections are the same, some of the counting rules are different. *Finalised defendant* 49 For both collections a finalised defendant is defined as follows: 'A person or organisation for which all charges relating to the one case have been formally completed so that the defendant ceases to be an item of work to be dealt with by the courts.' Within the ABS criminal courts collection, data are further aggregated to create a 'merged finalised defendant'. The rule is: if a defendant has more than one case, which is finalised on the same date in the same court level and in the same court location, their defendant records will be merged and counted as a single defendant record. This method of aggregation lowers the count of finalised defendants and increases duration statistics in comparison to the CADC. *Transfers between intermediate and supreme court levels* 50 For the ABS criminal courts collection, defendants who transfer from one higher court level to another are considered to be finalised in the court level they have left and initiated in the new court level they have entered. However, for the purposes of output, defendants who transfer from one higher court level to another (e.g. from an Intermediate Court to a Supreme Court), will be considered as initiated only once (in the level they first entered) and finalised only once (from the level they finally left). 51 For both collection and output purposes, the CADC counts defendants who transfer between higher court levels as finalised in the court level they left and initiated in the new court level they have entered. *Duration* 52 The ABS criminal courts collection calculates duration for a defendant as the time taken in days from the date of initiation to the date of finalisation i.e. Duration = Date of Finalisation - Date of Initiation + 1. 53 From 2004 the CADC has introduced the backlog index which is calculated using the duration of active pending matters. The formula used is as follows: No. of cases older than applicable reporting standard x 100 / Total pending caseload STATE/TERRITORY EVENTS / SPECIFIC ISSUES 54 The following information highlights events or processes unique to a state/territory that may have an impact on the data for this collection. This may include information on recording practices and changes to legislation supplied by each state/territory. New South Wales 55 Prior to 2006-07, defendants discharged under the Mental Health (Criminal Procedure) Act 1990 were included in the non-adjudicated population as 'unfit to plead'. Defendants with this method of finalisation are now correctly appearing as acquitted 'by reason of mental illness/condition' from 2006-07. Therefore, the number of acquittals prior to 2006-07 were undercounted for New South Wales and the number of other non-adjudicated finalisations were overstated. In 2006-07, 1,501 (21%) of the acquitted defendants were finalised through discharge for mental health reasons. Victoria 56 For the first time in 2006-07, data on principal offence in the Magistrates' and Children's Courts of Victoria have been provided based on the standard national counting rules. Prior to this, principal offence has been calculated using the main charge at initiation, rather than at finalisation. While the differences are expected to be minimal, some caution should be used in making comparisons of small data movements between 2005-06 and 2006-07. 57 Deception and related offences includes fare evasions processed through the Children's courts. Victoria processed a large number of backlogs of fare evasions through the Children's Court during 2006-07, resulting in a higher number of finalised defendants. Approximately 5,900 finalised defendants had a principal offence of fare evasion in 2006-07. From 2007-08 most fare evasions are expected to be dealt with in a new Children and Young Persons Infringement Notice System (CAYPINS) rather than through the Children's Courts. 58 Errors were encountered in some data prior to 2005-06, resulting in changes to the application of some national counting rules. These changes caused some minor movements in the principal offence data item in the 2005-06 data and therefore historical comparisons should be made with caution. In particular, abduction and related offences are overcounted prior to 2005-06. 59 From July 2005 the Children and Young Persons (Age Jurisdiction) Act 2004 was implemented increasing the age jurisdiction of the Criminal Division of the Children's Court from 17 years to 18 years. The definition of a child was amended as follows: 'in the case of a person who is alleged to have committed an offence, a person who at the time of the alleged commission of the offence was under the age of 18 years, but of or above the age of 10 years, but does not include any person who is of or above the age of 19 years when a proceeding for the offence is commenced in the Court'. This change led to an increase in the number of defendants heard in the Children's Courts and a decrease in the number of defendants heard in the Magistrates' Courts 60 Offence and sentence data for adjudicated defendants in the Higher Courts were derived from two sources. For defendants with offences proven guilty, the offence and sentence information was derived from the Higher Courts sentencing database. These data were then matched to the defendant records obtained from the primary source (courts listing system) for Victorian data. There is incomplete coverage of defendants proven guilty in the Victorian Higher Courts sentencing database, therefore offence details for some defendants are unavailable. Queensland 61 An error in the calculation of duration in the Queensland Higher Courts data was identified and the method corrected to comply with national counting rules. Duration data for Queensland prior to 2006-07 are not comparable as the calculation used resulted in shorter durations. 62 During 2004-05, Queensland's finalised defendant populations for the Higher, Magistrates' and Children's Criminal Courts were undercounted. This small undercount occurred due to an internal business process that resulted in a lag in the verification of finalised defendant records included in data supplied for the ABS publication. Revised 2004-05 data for Queensland was included in the 2005-06 publication. It is likely that data published prior to 2004-05 for Queensland also contains an undercount. The size of undercount in prior years is unknown. As a result, caution should be taken when making historical comparisons with 2004-05 and 2005-06 data. 63 Due to a change in business processes 'assault police' and 'resist/hinder police' offences are not able to be disaggregated in the 2004-05 revised and 2005-06 Magistrates' Criminal Courts data for Queensland. Where a defendant was adjudicated after February 2005 for either an assault police offence or a resist or hinder police officer offence, the offence level ASOC codes for both these offences were coded to ASOC group 1522 (resist or hinder police officer or justice official). Assault police should be recorded in ASOC Division 2. This has resulted in a slight undercount of defendants with offences coded to ASOC Division 2 and a slight overcount in ASOC Division 15 for Queensland 2004-05 revised data. 64 During 2005-06, a review of local processes used to compile data for the ABS was undertaken. As a result, some errors were identified in the application of counting rules and local offence code mappings to the ASOC. These anomalies were rectified in the 2004-05 data. Historical comparisons prior to 2004-05 should be made with caution, particularly for principal offence. 65 From July 2004 to February 2005, suspended sentences in the Higher Courts relating to Cairns, Townsville, Rockhampton and Brisbane were incorrectly categorised as imprisonment orders leading to imprisonment with a determined term being overstated and fully suspended sentences being understated. 66 Prior to January 2005, some suspended sentences were incorrectly categorised as imprisonment orders leading to imprisonment with a determined term being overstated and fully suspended sentences being understated in the Magistrates' Courts. South Australia 67 For 2006-07, there has been an increase in the number of sexual assault cases heard within the District Court. The Mulligan Inquiry resulted in increased reporting to police of sexual assault offences committed prior to 1983, resulting in increases of defendants appearing before the courts. 68 For 2006-07, the principal sentence '1210 intensive correction orders' has been separately reported and included in '1200 custody in the community'. This sentence type had previously been coded to '1300 fully suspended sentences'. Caution should therefore be taken in making comparisons with data prior to this period. 69 Court costs/levies have been excluded as a sentence type for South Australia from 2005-06. Prior to 2005-06, court costs/levies had been incorrectly included as a sentence type. The removal of these has resulted in a decrease in defendants with a principal sentence of '2290 other monetary orders n.e.c' and subsequent increases in some other non-custodial sentence categories for South Australia. Western Australia 70 For 2006-07, the principal sentence '2120 probation orders' has been separately reported and included in '2100 community supervision or work orders' in the Higher Courts data. This sentence type had previously been coded to either '1200 custody in the community' or '1300 fully suspended sentences'. Caution should therefore be taken in making comparisons with data prior to this period. 71 In 2005, the jurisdiction of the Children's Court changed allowing Children's Courts magistrates to hear all offences, whether indictable or summary, and to apply both adult and juvenile penalties. 72 During 2004, legislative changes were implemented in Western Australia impacting on the number and types of offences that could be adjudicated in the Magistrates' Court. These changes have resulted in an increase in the number of defendants finalised in the Magistrates' Courts in Western Australia and decreased the number of defendants transferred to the Higher courts. Tasmania 73 Data prior to 2005-06 contains a slight overcount of finalised defendants for the Magistrates' and Children's Courts due to incorrect application of counting rules. Data prior to 2006-07 contain a small number of non-original matters included in the finalised defendant counts. Northern Territory 74 The commencement of the Alcohol Court on 1 July 2006 has had some impact on the time taken to finalise matters in the Magistrates' Court. These matters often involve several court appearances to gather information from service providers. 75 The introduction of the Youth Justice Court (Youth Justice Act) 2007 allows for referral of a youth to diversion or youth justice conferencing which may impact on the time taken for defendants to be dealt with by the Children's Court. This Act also allows for pre-sentencing conferences which may impact on the time taken for defendants to be dealt with. 76 Incorrect application of counting rules resulted in revisions to data in 2004-05. Data prior to this period should be used with caution, particularly principal offence. Australian Capital Territory 77 For 2006-07, the principal sentence '2220 orders as recompense to victim' has been reported separately and included in the Higher Courts data. This sentence type had previously been coded to '2200 monetary orders'. Caution should therefore be taken in making comparisons with data prior to this period. 78 There was a significant increase in finalised defendants in the Magistrates' Courts data between 2004-05 and 2005-06 due to two main factors: a large number of old defendant records in the Magistrates' Courts were finalised; and a territory election during the reference period resulted in a large number of defendants being adjudicated for failure to vote offences. CONFIDENTIALITY OF TABULAR DATA 79 Table cells containing small values have been randomly adjusted to avoid releasing confidential information. Due to this randomisation process, totals may vary slightly across tables. RELATED PUBLICATIONS ABS publications 80 ABS publications which may be of interest include: Australian Social Trends (cat. no. 4102.0) - issued annually Australian Standard Offence Classification (cat. no. 1234.0) - irregular Corrective Services, Australia (cat. no. 4512.0) - issued quarterly Crime and Safety, Australia (cat. no. 4509.0) - released 26 April 2006 Crime and Safety, New South Wales (cat. no. 4509.1) - irregular 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 Information Paper: National Information Development Plan for Crime and Justice Statistics 2005 (cat. no. 4520.0) - single issue Measuring Wellbeing: Frameworks for Australian Social Statistics (cat. no. 4160.0) - irregular Measures of Australia's Progress (cat. no. 1370.0) - released 31 May 2006 National Criminal Courts Data Dictionary (cat. no. 4527.0) - released 1 February 2007 Personal Safety Survey, Australia (cat. no. 4906.0) - released 21 August 2006 Prisoners in Australia (cat. no. 4517.0) - issued annually Recorded Crime - Victims, Australia (cat. no. 4510.0) - issued annually Year Book Australia (cat. no. 1301.0) - issued annually 81 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. The National Centre for Crime and Justice Statistics (NCCJS) releases a newsletter titled Crime and Justice News (cat. no. 4500.0) that is published on the ABS website, and emailed to subscribers of the NCCJS electronic mailing list. The NCCJS can be contacted by email through <crime.justice@abs.gov.au>. Non-ABS publications 82 Non-ABS sources of criminal court statistics which may be of interest include: Australian Capital Territory Department of Justice and Community Safety, Annual Report Australian Institute of Criminology, List of Publications <http://www.aic.gov.au> Chief Justice of Western Australia, Annual Review Crime Research Centre, University of Western Australia, Crime and Justice Statistics for Western Australia Children's Court, Queensland, Annual Report Children's Court of Victoria, Annual Report County Court of Victoria, Annual Report Department of Justice, Northern Territory, Annual Report Department of Justice, Victoria, Annual Report Department of the Attorney General, Western Australia, Annual Report Department of Justice and Attorney-General, Queensland, Annual Report Department of Justice, Tasmania, Department of Justice Annual Report Director of Public Prosecutions, Annual Report, all State, Territory and Commonwealth Offices of the Director of Public Prosecutions District Court of Queensland, Annual Report District Court of Western Australia, Annual Report Local Court of New South Wales, Annual Review Magistrates' Court of Tasmania, Annual Report Magistrates' Court, Queensland, Annual Report Magistrates' Court of Victoria, Annual Report 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: Adult Courts and Corrections Office of Crime Statistics and Research, South Australia, Crime and Justice in South Australia: Juvenile Justice Office of Economic and Statistical Research, Crime and Justice Statistics Queensland Steering Committee for the Review of Government Service Provision, Report on Government Services Courts Administration Authority, South Australia, Annual Report Supreme Court of Queensland, Annual Report Supreme Court of Victoria, Annual Report Supreme Court of Tasmania, Annual Report Document Selection These documents will be presented in a new window.