IN THIS ISSUE
ABOUT THIS PUBLICATION
This publication presents national statistics on all persons remanded or sentenced to adult custodial corrective services agencies in each state and territory in Australia on 30 June 2014. These statistics describe the characteristics of prisoners, their sentence length, the most serious offence/charge for which offenders are imprisoned, and provide a basis for measuring change over time.
CHANGES IN THIS ISSUE
REVISIONS TO IMPRISONMENT RATES
In April 2014, the ABS published the backcast historical population estimates (for the period 2001 to 2011) for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander persons, along with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population projections (for the period 2001 to 2026) in Estimates and Projections, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, 2001 to 2026 (cat. no. 3238.0). As a result, imprisonment rates for both the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adult population and the non-Indigenous adult population in this publication for the years 2004 to 2013 have been revised, using final ERP data from the 2011 Census of Population and Housing. For more information, refer to Explanatory Notes, paragraphs 55–57.
The Australian adult Estimated Residential Population (ERP) used in the calculation of national imprisonment rates has been redefined to include only persons who can legally be sentenced/remanded into an adult correctional custodial facility in each state and territory for that reference period. This currently includes persons aged 18 years and over for all states and territories except Queensland, where it is persons aged 17 years and over. This methodology differs from that used in previous years and has resulted in a number of revisions to both crude and age standardised national imprisonment rates between 2004 and 2013 included in the attached data cubes. This change will also ensure that the Australian imprisonment rates for Prisoners in Australia (cat. no. 4517.0) and Corrective Services, Australia (cat .no. 4512.0) are calculated on the same basis. For more information, refer to Explanatory Notes, paragraphs 12 and 52.
Amended data are annotated as 'revised'.
CHANGES TO PUBLICATION TABLES
Consolidation and rationalisation of outputs since the 2013 Prisoners in Australia release has reduced the number of publication tables from 36 to 34, with no loss of published data due to these changes. A complete table concordance between the 2013 publication tables and the current 2014 publication tables is available under the Downloads tab.
ROUNDING
Discrepancies may occur between sums of component items and totals across tables, and within some summary tables, due to rounding and randomisation.
Proportions and percentages cited in the publication text have been rounded up/down to the nearest whole number.
FURTHER INFORMATION
A list of other ABS publications relating to crime and justice statistics can be found on the Related Information tab.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The ABS acknowledges the valuable contribution of the Board of Management and Advisory Group of the National Corrective Services Statistics Unit, and the staff of the various agencies that provide the statistics that are presented in this publication.
INQUIRIES
For further information about these and related statistics, contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070, or email client.services@abs.gov.au. The ABS Privacy Policy outlines how the ABS will handle any personal information that you provide to us.
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