Offence information

Offence data in this publication are presented in two ways for finalised defendants:

• by the Australian and New Zealand Standard Offence Classification (ANZSOC); and
• by an alternative, specialised view of the types of federal offences.

Australian and New Zealand Standard Offence Classification (ANZSOC)

ANZSOC provides a basis for the standard collection, analysis and dissemination of offence data within Crime and Justice statistics. A copy of the classification is provided in Appendix 1.

Principal federal offence

The offence categories referred to in the 'Federal defendants' chapter relate to the defendant's most serious federal offence, known as the 'principal federal offence'. While a defendant may 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.

Where defendants have been finalised 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 offences

The chapter 'Federal offences' provides information on all the federal offences finalised in the criminal courts. All federal offences attached to a federal defendant are included in the federal offence counts, therefore there is no principal offence when referring to federal offences.

For ease of reading, some terms have been abbreviated throughout this publication. The term 'and related offences' has been omitted for the following ANZSOC offence 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'. 'Unlawful entry with intent/burglary, break and enter' has been shortened to 'unlawful entry with intent'.

Federal offence - alternative offence classification

An alternative view of the types of federal offences is presented in the data cube 'Offences by federal offence group, 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 Divisions. For more detail about these non-standard offence groups and their concordance to Commonwealth Acts/Section and ANZSOC Divisions, refer to Appendix 4.

The federal offence groups have been revised for this issue. Details of the changes are provided in paragraph 27 of the Explanatory Notes.