MEASURING VICTIMS OF CRIME IN AUSTRALIA: A GUIDE TO USING ADMINISTRATIVE AND SURVEY DATA, (cat. no. 4500.0.55.001)
RELEASED: 16th June, 2011
The aim of the Measuring victims of crime in Australia paper (cat. no. 4500.0.55.001) is to increase community understanding of how the experiences of victims of crime in Australia are measured and to explore why findings from different crime data sources may differ.
Crime victimisation is an area of social concern that presents many challenges for statistical measurement due to its complexity, sensitivity and the fact that its occurrence is often hidden. As a result, ABS conducts two primary complementary statistical collections to provide a more comprehensive picture of crime victimisation across Australia: Recorded Crime – Victims statistics and the national Crime Victimisation Survey. These collections – one gathered from police administrative records and another collected directly from respondents in a household survey – have significant differences in methodology, scope, coverage and definitions. While these data sources are complementary, they present different views of crime victimisation and it is important for data users to be informed about how to best employ these statistical series to answer key questions in an accurate and fit-for-purpose manner.
A working example of comparisons between these two different data sources is used within the paper to demonstrate the impact of varying data collection methodologies on data for a range of offence types. Readers are also offered guidance about which data source is best suited to particular research questions.
THE PUBLICATION RECORDED CRIME - VICTIMS, AUSTRALIA, 2009-10 (cat. no. 4510.0)
RELEASED: 23rd June, 2010
The Recorded Crime Victims, Australia, 2009-10 (cat. no. 4510.0) presents national crime statistics relating to victims of a selected range of offences that have been recorded by police. These statistics provide indicators of the level and nature of recorded crime victimisation in Australia and a basis for measuring change over time. This issue marks a break in series for the collection, as all jurisdictions have now implemented the National Crime Recording Standard (NCRS) – as far as they are going to do so – and the collection can now continue on a new basis. The publication has been redesigned to a) reflect the new basis for the collection and removal of previous time series, and b) make a clear distinction between the offences where there is comparable national data available and where comparability issues exist (assault).
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