4517.0 - Prisoners in Australia, 2010 Quality Declaration 
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 09/12/2010   
   Page tools: Print Print Page Print all pages in this productPrint All  

SENTENCED PRISONERS

There were 5,955 sentenced Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoners at 30 June 2010, a 3% increase since 30 June 2009, compared with a 2% increase in the number of sentenced non-Indigenous prisoners (from 16,986 to 17,243). (Table 4.5)


Aggregate sentence length

Excluding prisoners with indeterminate, life with a minimum and periodic detention sentences, the median aggregate sentence length for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoners was unchanged from 2009 at 2 years (24 months), while for non-Indigenous prisoners it was 3.6 years (43 months), an increase of one month since 2009. (Tables 4.6 and 4.7). The following chart shows some variation in the aggregate sentence length for selected offences for the two populations.

Sentenced prisoners, Indigenous status, by median aggregate sentence length(a) and selected most serious offence
Graph: Sentenced prisoners, Indigenous status, by median aggregate sentence length(a) and selected most serious offence



Expected time to serve

Expected time to serve takes into account the earliest date of release for sentenced prisoners. Excluding prisoners with indeterminate, life without a minimum, and periodic detention sentences, the median expected time to serve for sentenced Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoners was 1.3 years (16 months). The median expected time to serve was highest for the offence category of homicide (8.0 years or 96 months) followed by sexual assault (5.3 years or 63 months). For the non-Indigenous population the median expected time to serve was 2.2 years (26 months), with a median of 11.9 years (143 months) for the offence category of homicide. (Tables 4.6 and 4.7)







Previous PageNext Page