OFFENCE INFORMATION
Offence data in this publication are presented using both the ANZSOC and an alternative specialised view of the types of federal offences that are finalised for defendants. ANZSOC provides a basis for the standard collection, analysis and dissemination of offence data within Crime and Justice statistics. For more information, see Explanatory Notes paragraph 19. The chapter "Federal Defendants' presents information on the number of offences finalised, as well as the principal federal offence.
For ease of reading, some terms have been abbreviated throughout this publication - for example, 'principal sentence' is referred to as 'sentence'. The term 'and related offences' has also been omitted for the following ANZSOC categories: homicide and related offences; sexual assault and related offences; robbery, extortion and related offences; theft and related offences; and fraud, deception and related offences. 'Offences against justice procedures, government security and government operations' has been shortened to 'offences against justice'.
Principal federal offence
The offence categories referred to in this publication relate to the defendant's most serious federal offence, known as the 'principal federal offence'. Whilst it is possible for a defendant to be charged with multiple offences under Commonwealth legislation as well as state or territory legislation, only offences enacted under Commonwealth legislation are considered in scope of this collection. For information on defendants with state or territory offences and/or Commonwealth offences refer to Criminal Courts, Australia (cat. no. 4513.0).
Where defendants are represented by multiple federal offences, they are assigned a principal federal offence based on the method of finalisation and/or the most serious offence type using an ordinal ranking from the National Offence Index (NOI) 2009. Therefore, each defendant will have only one principal federal offence.
Federal offence - ANZSOC
The chapter 'Federal Defendants' also provides information on all the federal offences finalised in the criminal courts. All the federal offences attached to a federal defendant are included in the federal offence counts. There is therefore no principal offence when referring to federal offences.
Federal offence - alternative groupings
An alternative view of the types of federal offences is presented in the data cube, Offences by Federal Offence Groups, Australia. The offence types used in this data cube are not based on an official standard but have been created to compile groups of Commonwealth offences of particular interest to users, using Act and Section information. These groups may comprise a range of offences that reside in a number of different ANZSOC Subdivisions. For more detail about these non-standard offence groups and their concordance to Commonwealth Acts/Section and ANZSOC division, refer to Appendix 5.
The federal offence groups have been revised for this issue. Details of the change are provided in Appendix 4.
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