4515.0 - Federal Defendants, Australia, 2016-17 Quality Declaration 
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 10/05/2018   
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IN THIS ISSUE

ABOUT THIS PUBLICATION

This publication presents nationally comparable statistics on federal defendants finalised in the Higher (Supreme and Intermediate), Magistrates' and Children's Courts within Australia for the period 1 July 2016 to 30 June 2017. For the purposes of this collection, federal defendants include persons or organisations with at least one offence, against Commonwealth legislation, finalised in the criminal courts within the reference period. The statistics are based on administrative records held by state and territory agencies responsible for courts administration and describe the characteristics of federal defendants, including information on offences, case outcomes and sentences. Selected time series data are also included where available.

CHANGES IN THIS ISSUE

Revisions

The following changes have been made in this issue which impact offence data:

  • Parking offences (dealt with under federal legislation) have been re-mapped to the ‘Transport’ Federal Offence Group, impacting data for 2015–16 and 2016–17 (see Explanatory Notes paragraphs 70–71); and
  • State and territory enacted national laws have been removed from the scope of the collection, impacting the 2015–16 and 2016–17 data (see Explanatory Notes paragraph 72).

Users are advised to refer to the most recent publication for all historical data.

Publication tables

The following changes have been made to the publication tables in order to better meet the needs of data users, and to improve usability and navigation of the tables:
  • Presenting counts of federal defendants finalised and federal defendants proven guilty within tables in Data cubes 1 and 2;
  • The addition of time series data within some tables to enable comparisons to be made across years, and account for the revisions made to the 2015–16 data;
  • The addition of detailed data on defendants proven guilty for Queensland; and
  • Removal of some detailed breakdown for the Federal Offence Group classification, based on user feedback.

A Guide to finding data in the publication tables is available via the Downloads Tab.

DATA COMPARABILITY

The statistics presented in this publication are sourced from the ABS Criminal Courts, Australia (cat. no. 4513.0) collection, 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

Proportions and percentages cited in the publication text have been rounded to the nearest whole number.

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.