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CRIME AND JUSTICE STATISTICS

OBJECTIVES

The Crime and Justice Statistics program leads national statistical activity to develop and improve information across the three domains of recorded crime, courts and corrections; publishing statistics and partnering with statistical practitioners in the jurisdictions to continually improve the quality of the collections.

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

The key stakeholders for 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:

• Recorded Crime - Victims, Australia (cat. no. 4510.0), which provides indicators of the level and nature of recorded crime victimisation in Australia annually
• Crime Victimisation, Australia (cat. no. 4530.0), which provides annual survey-based victimisation information for selected personal and household offences. Additional information is collected, on an irregular basis, about other crime types, and crime and safety related perceptions, behaviours and experiences.
• Recorded Crime - Offenders, Australia (cat. no. 4519.0), which provides characteristics of alleged offenders who have been proceeded against by police, including offence information, available annually
• Criminal Courts, Australia (cat. no. 4513.0), which provides characteristics of defendants, including information on their offences and sentences, available annually
• Federal Defendants, Australia (cat. no. 4515.0)
• Prisoners in Australia (cat. no. 4517.0), which provides 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
• 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 each quarter
• 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 assist policy agencies build a comparable statistical evidence base using administrative data, such as the Foundation for a National Data Collection and Reporting Framework for Family, Domestic and Sexual Violence (cat. no. 4529.0.00.003).

• support government efforts to improve information covering cybercrime and the prevalence of identity fraud in Australia - due December 2015
• ensure a sustainable future suite of crime victimisation surveys through the Australian Population Survey and a successful transition strategy from the current Crime Victimisation Survey program outputs - due December 2016
• 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 agreed high priority information on substance use, firearms, costs of crime, sub-state geography, recidivism and reappearance indicators - ongoing.