DATA SOURCES AND DEFINITIONS
Information in this article is sourced predominantly from Recorded Crime- Offenders, Australia 2007-08 to 2009-10 (Endnote 3, 4 & 5) and Crime Victimisation, Australia 2008-09 to 2009-10 (Endnote 6 & 7).
Recorded Crime – Offenders, Australia
Recorded Crime – Offenders, Australia (Endnote 3, 4 & 5) provides data relating to the number and characteristics of alleged offenders who have been proceeded against during the 12 month reference period. Data items include age, sex, principal offence, number of times proceeded against by police within the reference period and method of proceeding (court or non-court action).
Offence information is coded using the Australian and New Zealand Standard Offence Classification (ANZSOC), 2011 (Endnote 8).
Crime Victimisation, Australia
Crime Victimisation, Australia (Endnote 6 & 7) presents results from the Multipurpose Household Survey (MPHS) and collects data about victims for a selected range of personal and household offences, whether victims reported these incidents to police, characteristics of victims and characteristics of their most recent incident.
Direct comparisons between offenders and victims cannot be made. For further information, please refer to Measuring Victims of Crime: A Guide to Using Administrative and Survey Data,June 2011(Endnote 9).
Defining the youth population
There are a number of definitions and age ranges applied when referring to the youth population. The Avoid the Harm - Stay Calm report (Endnote 1) noted that definitions of ‘youth’ and ‘young people’ vary and are contested. As a result, a target population was not specified so as not to confine the youth population to a narrow or prescribed age group. For the purposes of presenting data in this article, however, it was necessary to set parameters to define the youth population.
Broadly, young people will be defined as those aged under 25 years. The availability of statistical data limits the coverage of this group. Data sourced from Crime Victimisation, Australia is presented for persons aged between 15 and 24 years. Data is not available for persons under the age of 15. Data sourced from Recorded Crime – Offenders, Australia is presented for persons aged between 10 and 24 years. Persons under the age of ten years are not in scope for this collection.
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