4125.0 - Gender Indicators, Australia, August 2016

ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 31/08/2016

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In This Issue Key Series and Indicators Economic Security Education Health Work and Family Balance Safety and Justice Democracy, Governance and Citizenship Future releases Men and women - how do we compare? (Media Release) Dad's the word (Media Release) About this Release	SAFETY AND JUSTICE The Safety and Justice section contains the following sub-topics: Experiences of crime (violence, sexual harassment, stalking, robbery) Imprisonment (including rates by offence, sentence length) Offenders (by age and principal offence) Detailed data for these sub-topics is available from the Downloads tab, above (see Table 5). HIGHLIGHTS Experiences of crime *Experience of physical or threatened assault or violence* About 5% of males and 4% of females aged 15 years and over had experienced assault or threatened assault in 2014-15 (456,000 males and 382,200 females). These rates have dropped from 7.5% of males and 5% of females in 2008-09. Footnote(s): a) Males and females 15 years and over who experienced assault as a proportion of total persons for each sex. Includes both face-to-face and non face-to-face physical assault and threatened physical assault. Source(s): Customised data, ABS Crime Victimisation Survey, 2008-09 to 2014-15 Rates of homicide for both males and females have not changed over the past 6 years, at around 1.3 per 100,000 males and 0.7 per 100,000 females. More males than females are murdered overall, and males are more likely to have experienced a murder attempt. See Table 5.8 for more detail. Just over one in five Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men (22%) and women (21%) aged 18 years and over had experienced physical or threatened violence in 2014-15, a level that was relatively unchanged from 2008. ('Violence' includes physical assault and physical threats or attempts.) See Table 5.2 for more detail. *Sexual assault* Between 2010 and 2015, females were around five to six times more likely than males to have experienced sexual assault (between 140 and 148 females experiencing sexual assault per 100,000 females, compared with between 25 and 31 males per 100,000 males). See Table 5.8 for more detail. *Robbery* In 2015, males were around three times more likely to have been robbed than females. Rates have steadily declined for both males and females over the past five years, from 87 males and 27 females per 100,000 experiencing robbery in 2010, to 46 males and 16 females per 100,000 in 2015. Males are also twice as likely to be blackmailed. (see Table 5.8). *Reporting rates* The reporting rate for physical assault for men increased from 42% in 2008-09 to 56% in 2014-15. Only about half of all people's most recent incidents of assault were reported to police (see Table 5.7 via the Downloads tab for more detail). Imprisonment At 30 June 2015, there were 2,876 women and 33,256 men in Australian adult corrective services facilities (see Table 5.9). Between 30 June 2014 and 30 June 2015: The imprisonment rate increased for all people except 18-19 year old males, 18 year old females, and females aged 65 years and over (see Figure 1 below, and Table 5.9 for more detail). The median sentence length for women dropped from 24 to 20 months, but the median sentence length for men remained unchanged at 36 months (see Table 5.12). Footnote(s): (a) In all States and Territories except Queensland, persons remanded or sentenced to adult custody are aged 18 years and over. In Queensland, 'adult' refers to persons aged 17 years and over. (b) Rates are per 100,000 adult population. Source(s): Customised data, ABS National Prisoner Census, 2015 At 30 June 2015, there were 1,966 female and 24,193 male sentenced prisoners. Around 9.6% of female sentenced prisoners had homicide and related offences as their most serious offence, compared with 9.1% of male sentenced prisoners. While women were more likely to have fraud, deception and related offences as their most serious offence (9.7% compared with 2.1% of male sentenced prisoners), men were more likely to have sexual assault and related offences as their most serious offence (13.4% compared with 1.8% of female sentenced prisoners). See Table 5.11 for more detail. Data from the National Prisoner Census shows that imprisonment rates differ widely between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander males and other people (see Figure 3, below). Footnote(s): (a) Rates are per 100,000 adult population. (b) In all States and Territories except Queensland, persons remanded or sentenced to adult custody are aged 18 years and over. In Queensland, 'adult' refers to persons aged 17 years and over. Source(s): Source: National Prisoner Census, 2005-2015 Offenders In 2014-15 there were 3,143 male and 856 female offenders per 100,000 males and females aged 10 years and over respectively. These rates have remained relatively stable since 2008-09, with male offender rates consistently more than triple that of female offender rates (see Table 5.14). Acts intended to cause injury, public order offences, illicit drug offences and theft and related offences were the most common principal offences for both males and females. However, all rates were much lower for females. The highest offender rate for females was for theft and related offences. The highest offender rate for males was for illicit drug offences. Footnote(s): (a) Rate per 100,000 females aged 10 years and over Source(s): ABS Recorded Crime - Offenders, Australia, 2013-14 (cat. no. 4519.0) Footnote(s): (a) Rate per 100,000 males aged 10 years and over Source(s): ABS Recorded Crime - Offenders, Australia, 2013-14 (cat. no. 4519.0) Between 2012-13 and 2014-15, the male offender rate for sexual assault and related offences increased from 57.4 to 68.6 per 100,000 people aged 10 years and over, in contrast to the steady decrease observed since 2008-09. The female rate increased from 3.1 to 5.1 per 100,000 in this time (see Table 5.14 for more detail). Document Selection These documents will be presented in a new window.