Quality Declaration
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EXPLANATORY NOTES
18 The Magistrates' and Children's Courts data exclude finalisations in specialist courts, such as Drug Courts, Electronic Courts, Fine Recovery Units and Indigenous Courts. Defendants referred to these specialist courts from mainstream courts will be included in the mainstream courts data as transfers. 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 2016 to 30 June 2017. CLASSIFICATIONS 20 The national classifications used to collect and produce data on defendants in the criminal courts are:
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 national Criminal Courts statistics in this publication are classified to the Australian and New Zealand Standard Offence Classification (ANZSOC) (cat. no. 1234.0) (see Appendix 1). 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 ASOC and therefore there were no impacts on the offence data. Information about the effects of changing ASOC97 to ASOC08 is presented in the Technical Note in the 2008–09 issue of this publication. 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 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 are 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 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 and related 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 (see Appendix 2). For more information see paragraphs 32–41. Sentence Type 27 This classification is used to assign a principal sentence to a defendant who has been proven guilty (see Appendix 3). For more information see paragraphs 47–50. NATIONAL CRIMINAL COURTS DATA DICTIONARY 28 A data dictionary is an agreed set of classifications and standards that is accepted as the authoritative reference for a particular area of statistics. The National Criminal Courts Data Dictionary, 2006 (cat. no. 4527.0) was 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. The current version 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 29 The principal counting unit for the Criminal Courts 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 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 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. 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. 31 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. METHOD OF FINALISATION 32 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. 33 A bench warrant is not considered a method of finalisation for a defendant in the Higher Courts and has been excluded from counts in this publication. 34 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 35 Defendants who transfer from one Higher Court level to another Higher Court level 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 36 Defendants who transfer from the Magistrates' Court level to the Higher Court level (or vice versa) 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 37 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 38 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:
Magistrates' Courts 39 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:
Children's Courts 40 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:
41 Defendants with a principal offence of Homicide and related offences, Robbery, extortion and related 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. PRINCIPAL OFFENCE 42 Prior to 2007–08, principal offence was only calculated for those defendants whose charges were adjudicated. Since 2008–09, principal offence rules have been extended to include defendants whose charges were non-adjudicated or transferred to another court level. This means that principal offence data are available for all finalised defendants. 43 Where a finalised defendant has multiple charges the principal offence is determined by:
44 The type of finalisation is considered in the following order:
45 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 offence is the relevant ANZSOC code (see paragraph 22) associated with that charge. 46 Where a defendant has multiple charges, each with the same method of finalisation (e.g. the defendant has been found guilty of all charges), the NOI is used to determine the principal offence. The principal 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 is 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 offence is coded to 'not able to be determined'. PRINCIPAL SENTENCE 47 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:
48 Where a defendant has multiple sentences, the principal sentence is selected by applying the hierarchy of the Sentence Type classification (see Appendix 3). 49 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/territory and court level should be considered when making comparisons. 50 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 Criminal Courts statistics 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. SENTENCE LENGTH AND FINE AMOUNT Principal sentence length or fine amount 51 The principal sentence length or fine amount is the largest value associated with the principal sentence. Where there is more than one length or amount imposed for the same principal sentence type, the largest value is selected. A sentence imposed may relate to more than one offence, therefore the sentence length or amount may also refer to more than one offence. This is known as multi-offence or global sentencing. The ABS is developing methods to identify such instances as this is likely to have the effect of inflating the sentence length or amount. 52 Concurrent sentences (those which commence at the same time) or cumulative sentences (which are served one after the other) may be imposed when a defendant has committed multiple offences. Regardless of whether the sentences for a defendant are served concurrently or cumulatively, the length or amount selected is the largest value associated with the principal sentence. 53 A non-parole period is the minimum amount of time that a prisoner will be kept imprisoned before being eligible to be released on parole. Specific offences may have a legislated non-parole period, referred to as a 'minimum sentence'. The sentence length presented in this publication refers to the total period of the sentence imposed by the courts, not the 'minimum sentence'. 54 Life and indeterminate sentences are the most serious forms of imprisonment. Defendants sentenced to life imprisonment may not necessarily be imprisoned for the term of their natural life but may serve a minimum time as specified by the court or by an administrative body such as a Parole Board. Indeterminate sentences do not have a prescribed minimum term to serve and may be subject to a ministerial or other administrative decision as to the actual sentence length served. Therefore these types of imprisonment do not necessarily have an associated sentence length and defendants with this principal sentence have been excluded from custodial sentence length statistics. The number of defendants sentenced to life and indeterminate imprisonment (54 in 2016–17) accounts for less than 1% of all defendants sentenced to custody in a correctional institution.
55 A defendant sentenced to imprisonment with a partially suspended term must be detained in prison for part of the specified term of the sentence, with the remainder of the term suspended on the condition that the defendant will be of good behaviour. Sentence length data for partially suspended sentences have been published from 2012–13. Principal proven offence 56 For sentence length data, the offence information presented relates to principal proven offence. The principal proven offence for a defendant is derived by determining the most serious sentence type (the principal sentence), and then selecting the offence type that directly resulted in this penalty. In situations where several sentences of equal seriousness are imposed, the principal proven offence derivation takes into account the length or monetary amount of the sentence, and if necessary, the seriousness of the offence, for example:
Principal proven offence compared with principal offence 57 The principal proven offence associated with sentence length can differ from the principal offence used to present offence data for defendant counts. Principal proven offence is determined by the principal sentence for a defendant, whereas the principal offence is determined independently of principal sentence (see paragraphs 42–46). These two items will differ when the most serious offence proven guilty does not incur the most serious and largest sentence.
72 The RoGS does not report on the duration of matters. Since 2004, the RoGS has reported the backlog in a court's workload, measured as a percentage of the pending caseload at 30 June which is older than nominated time standards. The formula used is as follows:
STATE/TERRITORY EVENTS / SPECIFIC ISSUES 73 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 74 Duration 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 data and therefore caution should be used when making comparisons across states and territories. This issue does not impact on the NSW Higher Courts. 75 Sentence length for fully suspended sentences reflects the period over which the defendant must maintain good behaviour (i.e. the bond/recognizance duration) not the length of the imprisonment order that was suspended. For Fully suspended sentences imposed under federal legislation it is possible for the bond to exceed the length of the imprisonment order under the Commonwealth Crimes Act. This impacts an estimated one-third of fully suspended sentences imposed for federal offences. 76 New South Wales legislation does not contain discrete offences of stalking, intimidation and harassment. As these offences cannot be disaggregated, defendants charged with stalking, intimidation and harassment have been coded to ANZSOC offence group 0291 (Stalking). Therefore from 2008–09, this group may |be overstated and 05 (Abduction, harassment and other offences against the person) may be understated. Caution should be used when making comparisons with other states and territories. 77 In September 2017, the Judicial Commission of New South Wales reclassified a number of local Law Part codes to different ANZSOC codes to improve the accuracy of New South Wales offence information, most notably knife offences under the Summary Offences Act 1988. These updates have impacted on the number of defendants finalised by Principal offence across a range of ANZSOC divisions within the 2016-17 Criminal Courts publication, for the 2015–16 and 2016–17 periods. The updates have more than doubled the number of defendants finalised with a Principal offence of Prohibited and regulated weapons and explosives offences within the revised 2015–16 data and resulted in notable decreases in the number of defendants with a principal offence of Public order offences and Miscellaneous offences for the same period. The number of defendants finalised across other offence divisions may have also been impacted by these changes. Users are advised to refer to the latest version of the Criminal Courts publication to access the most accurate offence data available for 2015–16. Caution should be exercised when making comparisons between the number of defendants finalised by principal offence in New South Wales prior to 2015–16. 78 An increase in records with an Indigenous Status of ‘unknown’ was published in the previous two cycles. The increase in unknowns contributed to decreases in both the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous defendant populations in tables where Indigenous Status data were presented. This issue has been rectified in this edition by incorporating indigenous status from the NSW Police Force custody system, and revised data are presented for 2014–15 and 2015-16. Users are advised to refer to the most recent publication and data cubes for accurate Indigenous status data for New South Wales. Please note that this issue also affects Indigenous status data in 4519.0 - Recorded Crime - Offenders and the treatment is identical. 79 Due to the inclusion of some out of scope offences, there was an over count in the number of finalised defendants in 2014–15 for New South Wales - specifically, defendants prosecuted under the Bail Act 1978 for 'fail to appear' offences. The over count is estimated to account for less than 1% of finalised defendants for the 2014–15 reference period. 80 There was an under count in the number of defendants finalised in New South Wales in 2012–13 due to the exclusion of those finalised in the Magistrates' Court during June 2013. The majority of these defendants were issued a Fine. The under count is estimated to account for less than 1% of finalised defendants for the 2012–13 reference period. 81 From late 2012, the NSW District Court started hearing Workplace Health and Safety prosecutions previously dealt with by the NSW Industrial Relations Commission. Proven prosecutions may result in significant fines. Thus, with an increasing number of these prosecutions finalised in the Higher Courts between 2013–14 and 2014–15, mean and median fine amounts have been notably high for Miscellaneous offences and Total offences in the Higher Courts in 2014–15 and 2015–16 for New South Wales. Victoria 82 In 2016–17, offences proceeded against under the Eastlink Project Act were re-coded from ANZSOC group 1311 Trespass to ANZSOC group 1439 Regulatory driving offences, in order to improve data quality and comparability. Users are therefore advised not to make comparisons across years and with other jurisdictions for ANZSOC divisions 13 Public order offences and 14 Traffic and vehicle regulatory offences prior to 2016–17. 83 For all years prior to 2016–17, the number of defendants acquitted in the Victorian Magistrates’ and Children’s Courts are overstated, while those proven guilty and sentenced to a nominal penalty are understated. This has resulted from both outcome types being recorded as ‘dismissed’ on the Victorian Court link system and thereby coded to a method of finalisation of acquitted within the Criminal Courts data up until 2016–17. Users are advised not to make comparisons across years. 84 For 2014–15, there were inconsistencies in the recording of sentence length for defendants sentenced to home detention in the Magistrates’ Courts. This has resulted in an over count of 10 defendants with a sentence length of less than 3 months and an under count of 10 defendants with a sentence length of one year or more. There was no impact on the total number of finalised defendants. 85 Suspended sentences ceased to be a sentencing option in Victoria for offences committed after 1 September 2013 (in the County and Supreme Court, and 1 September 2014 in the Magistrates’ Court). This has resulted in a decrease in suspended sentences as the principal sentence from 2014–15 onwards and increases in other types of principal sentences including community supervision or work orders. Caution should be used when making historical comparisons. 86 In January 2012, changes to the Sentencing Act removed the Victorian Court's ability to impose the following sentences: community-based orders, intensive corrections orders, combined custody and treatment orders or home detention orders. These were replaced by a new Community Correction Order (CCO) which can contain a number of conditions. In 2012–13, the order was mapped to Community service orders, even though not all instances required unpaid community work. In 2013–14, Victoria provided all components of these orders with each condition mapped to a corresponding sentence in the ABS Sentence type classification. This allowed the ABS to derive one of these components as the Principal sentence. This change in reporting has resulted in an initial decrease in the number of defendants with a Principal sentence of Community service orders and an increase in those with Intensive corrections orders, Probation orders and Treatment orders. However, the for defendants with a CCO, the majority end up with a principal sentence of Community service order. As only one component of the CCO is selected as the Principal sentence, it may still not be reflective of the actual order imposed. Caution should therefore be used when interpreting Principal sentence data for Victoria and making historical comparisons. Queensland 87 Before 2015–16, Queensland was not able to provide detailed data on defendants proven guilty. While data on defendants proven guilty is accurate in previous issues of this publication, users are advised to avoid making historical comparisons with data on defendants with a method of finalisation of Guilty plea by defendant, Guilty finding by court, or Guilty ex-parte. South Australia 88 Due to a change in coding of offences relating to section 47BA of the Road Traffic Act 1961 ‘driving with prescribed drug in oral fluid or blood’, data about defendants with a principal offence in ANZSOC Divisions 04 Dangerous and negligent acts and 14 Traffic and vehicle regulatory offences have been revised for 2014–15 and 2015–16. Previously, these offences had been coded to ANZSOC Group 0411 Driving under the influence of alcohol or other substances, however as the legislation does not specify whether the defendant was driving dangerously these offences have been re-coded to ANZSOC Group 1431 Exceed the prescribed content of alcohol or other substance limit within this publication for the 2014–15 period onwards. This is in line with similar coding changes applied to offence data for Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia within the 2015–16 Criminal Courts publication. Users are advised to exercise caution when making historical comparisons between affected ANZSOC Divisions (04 and 14) prior to 2014–15. 89 In May 2016, the Statutes Amendment (Home Detention) Act, 2016 came into effect in South Australia and provisions relevant to the Magistrates’ court commenced on September 1, 2016. The Act establishes home detention as an alternative to a custodial sentence and may be imposed by the court for selected offences with the aim of improving rehabilitation and reducing recidivism. 90 For 2013–14, changes were made to how sentence length data was determined for partially and fully suspended sentences, thus aligning the data with national reporting requirements. For partially suspended sentences, the sentence length now reflects the entire length of the sentence, ie. both the imprisonment and suspended portions, where previously only the imprisonment portion was provided. This has resulted in an increase in sentence length for partially suspended sentences. For fully suspended sentences, the sentence quantum now reflects the sentence that was suspended and not the good behaviour bond period provided previously. This has resulted in a decrease in sentence length for fully suspended sentences. Caution should therefore be used when making historical comparisons for these sentence types. 91 The Statutes Amendments (Fines Enforcement and Recovery) Act 2013 came into effect on 3 February 2014. As a result, the responsibility of the collection and enforcement of fines was transferred from the Courts Administration Authority to the Fines Enforcement and Recovery Unit managed by the South Australian Attorney-General’s Department. The introduction of the new unit and changes to the management of outstanding expiation notices has contributed to the decrease in the number of finalised defendants in South Australia for 2014–15 to 2016–17. In particular, there have been notable decreases in the number of defendants finalised with as guilty ex-parte, principal offence of Traffic and vehicle regulatory offences, and principal sentence of a fine. Caution should therefore be used when making historical comparisons. Western Australia 92 In Western Australia the Children’s Court has exclusive jurisdiction to hear and determine charges alleged to have been committed by a child. The President of the Children’s Court is a judge with the same powers as a Supreme Court judge with regard to sentencing and therefore can deal with all offences and impose both juvenile and adult penalties on an offender. 93 Homicide and related offences may be overstated in Western Australia for 2016–17 as careless driving resulting in grievous bodily harm or bodily harm may be included in driving causing death where these offences were proceeded against under the Road Traffic Act 1974 section 59BA 'careless driving causing death, grievous bodily harm or bodily harm' introduced on the 21st of September, 2016. Based on information available on the Integrated Courts Management System (ICMS) it is not always possible to determine whether the offence resulted in death or harm. 94 For 2013–14 onwards, Western Australia has reported date of initiation for the Magistrates' and Children's Courts based on date of registration, as per national reporting standards. Previously, the date of first appearance was provided. Caution should therefore be used when making historical comparisons, or comparing historical data with other states and territories 95 In November 2013, Western Australia's Magistrates' and Children's Courts data were migrated to the ICMS. Data entry and extraction procedures on the ICMS vary from the previous recording system, with the result of greater accuracy in identifying defendants who were proven guilty ex-parte, acquitted, transferred or had their case withdrawn by the prosecution. Caution should therefore be used when making historical comparisons, particularly for Method of finalisation. Tasmania 96 Sentence length and fine data are unavailable for the Tasmanian Higher Courts. Sentence length data are also unavailable for Good behaviour bonds for Higher, Magistrates' and Children's Courts. 97 During 2014–15 and 2015–16, a number of archival cases were officially closed off in the Tasmanian Magistrates' Court system. These defendants were finalised as "Charges unproven not elsewhere classified" and appear in this publication as Acquitted. The closure of these cases has also resulted in an increase in the mean and median duration from initiation to finalisation. Caution should therefore be used when making historical comparisons. Northern Territory 98 Duration 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 data and therefore caution should be used when making comparisons across states and territories. This issue does not impact on data for Higher Courts. 99 In March, 2016 on-the-spot fines for long-term unlicensed and unregistered drivers came into effect in the Northern Territory. Police now have the option to issue an offender with an infringement notice where persons are caught driving an unregistered vehicle for more than 12 months, or driving with a licence expired for more than 2 months. Previously these matters were referred to the courts. This has impacted on the number of defendants finalised for 14 Traffic and vehicle regulatory offences in the Northern Territory since the changes came into effect. Users are advised to exercise caution when making historical comparisons. 100 For 2013–14, there were inconsistencies in the recording of suspended sentence data in the Magistrates' and Children's Courts whereby a small number of defendants were coded to a Fully suspended sentence rather than a Partially suspended sentence. The 33 defendants affected were those who were sentenced to an imprisonment sentence and held in custody to 'rising of the Court', therefore serving time in custody. This has resulted in an over count of 33 defendants in the number with a Principal sentence of Fully suspended sentence (1,093 defendants) and an under count of 33 defendants in the number with a Principal sentence of Partially suspended sentence (648 defendants). There was no impact on the total number of finalised defendants. 101 In 2011–12 and 2012–13, a joint project between the NT Department of the Attorney-General and Justice and Police to close historic outstanding warrants and summons matters resulted in an increase in the number of finalisations. Other impacts include increases in the duration of cases; increases in the number of cases withdrawn by the prosecution; and increases in the numbers of defendants with unknown Indigenous status. Caution should be used when making historical comparisons. Australian Capital Territory 102 Prior to 2016–17, sentence quantum data was extracted and aggregated manually from the Australian Capital Territory Law Courts and Tribunal Management system due to system constraints. For 2016-17, this extraction and aggregation process has been automated, resulting in an improvement in data quality. 103 During 2016–17, the ACT Department of Public Prosecutions has placed increased focus on resolving outstanding charges, resulting in an increase in defendants whose charges were withdrawn, and an increase in median duration for the 2016–17 reference period. 104 In 2014–15, amendments were made to the coding of some local offences to the ANZSOC in the Australian Capital Territory's Criminal Courts data in order to improve comparability with data across the states and territories. Most notably, driving offences that did not result in a fatality (previously coded to ANZSOC Group 0132 Driving causing death), were amended so these offences were more appropriately coded to ANZSOC Group 0412 Dangerous or negligent operation (driving) of a vehicle. This change impacts on ANZSOC Division 01 Homicide and related offences and Division 04 Dangerous or negligent acts endangering persons. Therefore, caution should be used when making historical comparisons for these ANZSOC divisions. CONFIDENTIALITY OF TABULAR DATA 105 The Census and Statistics Act 1905 provides the authority for the ABS to collect statistical information, and requires that statistical output shall 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 was applied to the Criminal Courts collection for the first time for the 2013–14 reference period. Perturbation involves 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. 106 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. 107 Perturbation has been applied to all data presented in this publication (excluding the experimental FDV data cube) as well as data in the Criminal Courts collection from 2008–09 onwards. Previous to the 2013–14 reference period, a different technique was used to confidentialise the data and therefore there may be small differences between historical data presented in the 2013–14 issue onwards and those published in previous issues. REVISIONS 108 Selected data for New South Wales and South Australia for 2014–15 and 2015–16 have been revised within this publication. For more information please refer to the ‘State/Territory Issues/Events’ section of this document. Users are advised against making comparisons between data in this issue and previous issues of the publication, as data may not be directly comparable. RELATED PUBLICATIONS ABS publications 109 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 110 Non-ABS sources of criminal court statistics which may be of interest include:
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