ABOUT THIS PUBLICATION
This publication presents statistics relating to finalised defendants charged with federal offences and heard in the criminal jurisdiction of the Higher (Supreme and Intermediate), Magistrates' and Children's Courts across Australia for the period 1 July 2012 to 30 June 2013. Selected data are also presented across time periods where available. The statistics describe the characteristics of these defendants, including information on the offences, case outcomes and sentences associated with those defendants.
CHANGES IN THIS ISSUE
For this edition of the publication, a review was undertaken of the tables in consultation with data users and other stakeholders. The tables have been restructured to incorporate all state and territory data in one place resulting in a reduced number of tables and data cubes. This issue also includes mean and median duration from initiation to finalisation data for the first time. For a detailed concordance between the 2011–12 and 2012–13 publication tables see Appendix 5.
This publication presents offence data according to two types of classification - by the Australian and New Zealand Standard Offence Classification (ANZSOC), the official standard, and by federal offence groups, a non-official set of categories. The federal offence groups were reviewed and changed in 2011–12 to better align with the current administration of federal offences. Further refinements in classifying Commonwealth legislation to federal offence groups has been undertaken in 2012–13 and as such, data for 2011–12 have been revised. Details of these changes are provided in paragraph 27 of the Explanatory Notes.
A number of other minor revisions have been made to the 2010–11 and 2011–12 data. Details of these revisions are provided in paragraphs 48–52 of the Explanatory Notes.
DATA CONSISTENCY
The statistics are sourced from the national Criminal Courts collection conducted by the ABS, and have been compiled according to national standards in order to maximise consistency between the states and territories. The Explanatory Notes, appendices and Glossary provide detailed information on the data sources, counting rules, terminology, classifications and other technical aspects associated with these statistics.
ROUNDING
Discrepancies may occur between sums of component items and totals across, and within, tables due to rounding and randomisation.
INFORMATION ON ABS CRIME AND JUSTICE STATISTICS
For a listing of ABS publications relating to crime and justice statistics, refer to the Related Information tab.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The ABS acknowledges the valuable contribution of the Board of Management of the National Criminal Courts Statistics Unit, the National Criminal Courts Statistics Advisory Group, the Court Practitioners' Group and the staff of the various agencies that provide the statistics presented in this publication.
INQUIRIES
For further information about these and related statistics, contact the National Information Referral Service on 1300 135 070, or email client.services@abs.gov.au. The Privacy Policy outlines how the ABS will handle any personal information that you provide to us.
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