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CRIME AND JUSTICE STATISTICS

OBJECTIVES

The Crime and Justice Statistics Program leads national statistical activity aimed at developing and improving information in this field. The program covers the activities of the National Centre for Crime and Justice Statistics comprising three separate user-funded statistical units: the National Crime Statistics Unit; the National Criminal Courts Statistics Unit; and the National Corrective Services Statistics Unit. These units compile and publish national statistics on recorded crime, courts and corrections, and work to improve the quality of these collections in cooperation with statistical practitioners in the jurisdictions.

The ABS also undertakes a survey program in the field of crime and justice statistics. This includes special purpose surveys aimed at producing rates of victimisation for personal and household crimes, and information on the experience and consequences of crime; as well as more general surveys aimed at understanding the experience of crime within a broader social context.

The main clients of this program are the Australian Government Attorney-General’s Department, state and territory agencies responsible for police services, courts administration and corrective services, organisations undertaking criminal justice research, and the community.


OUTPUTS

The main outputs of the program are:

• indicators of the level and nature of recorded crime victimisation in Australia presented annually in Recorded Crime - Victims, Australia (cat. no. 4510.0)
• annual survey-based victimisation information for selected personal and household offences, presented in Crime Victimisation, Australia (cat. no. 4530.0). Additional information is collected, on an irregular basis, about other crime types, and crime and safety related perceptions, behaviours and experiences.
• characteristics of alleged offenders who have been proceeded against by police, including offence information, available annually from 2007–08 in Recorded Crime - Offenders, Australia (cat. no. 4519.0)
• characteristics of defendants, including information on their offences and sentences, available annually in Criminal Courts, Australia (cat. no. 4513.0) and characteristics of federal defendants available annually in Federal Defendants, Australia (cat. no. 4515.0)
• information from the National Prisoner Census on people held in adult prisons, including their characteristics, sentence lengths and offences for which they are imprisoned, published annually in Prisoners in Australia (cat. no. 4517.0)
• quarterly Corrective Services, Australia (cat. no. 4512.0), which presents information on numbers and rates of people in custody and those serving community-based corrections orders
• outputs to promote national standards for crime and justice statistics; recent examples include revised classifications such as the Australian and New Zealand Standard Offence Classification and the National Offence Index, the development of a national crime recording standard for police statistics, and the family, domestic and sexual violence conceptual framework
• outputs to explore different ways of looking at crime and justice statistics, through publication of short articles in the In Focus: Crime and Justice In Focus (cat. no. 4524.0).

• review and enhance the crime victimisation survey program outputs - due December 2015
• support government efforts to improve information about cybercrime and statistics relating to prevalence of identity fraud in Australia - due December 2015
• in collaboration with data providers, improve the range, quality and availability of data collected through administrative systems in police, courts and corrective services sectors with a focus on improving Indigenous identification - ongoing
• support evidence based development projects across crime and justice areas through assistance and advice to related agencies in key areas of statistical need such as family, domestic and sexual violence and the civil justice system - ongoing
• support efforts to improve information on substance use, sub-state geography and mental health in relation to crime and justice, recidivism, reappearance indicators for offenders and courts - ongoing.