FINALISED DEFENDANTS

Finalised defendants include persons charged with Commonwealth criminal offences for each court level, as well as organisations charged with Commonwealth criminal offences for the Higher and Magistrates' Courts. A federal defendant is a finalised defendant who has been charged with at least one offence against Commonwealth legislation, irrespective of whether they have also been charged with any offences under state/territory legislation.

Prior to 2010-11, defendants were counted for each case they had finalised during the reference period, irrespective of whether multiple cases were finalised on the same day at the same hearing. For the first time in this issue, a further step is taken when a defendant has more than one case in the reference period. When this occurs a defendant is created by merging defendant records. This counting rule is now consistent with that applied in Criminal Courts, Australia (cat. no. 4513.0). The change in counting methodology has had a minimal impact on population counts for federal defendants in 2010-11, Details of the counting methodology can be found in the Explanatory Notes paragraph 27-29.

The statistics presented in this publication are based on data extracted from administrative records held by the state and territory agencies responsible for courts administration.

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