Federal Defendants, Australia methodology

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Reference period
2020-21 financial year
Released
16/06/2022

Data collection

Scope and coverage

The Federal Defendants, Australia, 2020–21 data relates to persons and organisations charged with an offence against Commonwealth legislation, whose case(s) have been finalised within the criminal jurisdictions of the Higher, Magistrates' or Children's courts between 1 July 2020 and 30 June 2021.  This data covers federal defendant demographics, principal federal offence, sentencing and case duration.

Data on federal offenders in prison is included in Prisoners in Australia.  Defendants whose cases relate only to offences under state or territory legislation are not in scope of this release, but are included in Criminal Courts, Australia.

Charges against Commonwealth legislation can be prosecuted by state and territory police agencies, the Australian Federal Police, the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, state Directors of Public Prosecutions, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, the Australian Tax Office and other (generally Commonwealth) authorities.

For comparability purposes, federal offences based on national laws enacted under state and territory legislation are excluded from the scope of the Federal Defendants collection from 2016–17.

The Australian Road Rules (maintained by the National Transport Commission) only apply in each state and territory if they have been enacted by legislation. For example, in the Northern Territory, offences against the Australian Road Rules are identified as federal offences. However, to ensure consistency across all states and territories, the Australian Road Rules and the associated state and territory enacting legislation, are excluded from the scope of the Federal Defendants collection.

The geographic definition of Australia, as used by the ABS, includes 'Other Territories'. Federal Defendants finalised on Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Christmas Island are included in the counts for Western Australia, where applicable. Defendants finalised in Jervis Bay Territory or Norfolk Island are not included.

    Data source

    Statistics presented in this publication are compiled based on administrative unit record data supplied to the ABS by the agencies responsible for courts administration in each state and territory, with the exception of Queensland (where data are supplied via the Office of the Government Statistician), and New South Wales (where data are supplied via the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research).

    To ensure consistency between the states and territories, each one is required to provide data coded to national classifications and standards.

      Counting methodology

      The principal counting unit for this collection is the finalised defendant.  A finalised defendant is defined as a person or organisation for whom all charges within a case have been formally completed so that they cease to be an active item of work for the court during the reference period. The method of finalisation for each charge at case completion may be a guilty outcome, acquittal, withdrawal, transfer, or other outcome.

      The Federal Defendants collection does not enumerate unique persons, instead the following counting rules are applied:

      • Where a defendant is finalised for more than one case, on the same date and in the same court level, their records are merged, and they are counted as one finalised defendant
      • Where a defendant is finalised for more than one case, on separate dates within the reference period, they will be counted once for each date they were finalised

      Transfers

      The following counting rules apply with regards to defendants transferred from, or between court levels:

      • Defendants transferred from one Higher Court level to another Higher Court level (for example from a County Court to Supreme Court) are considered as finalised only once (from the level they finally left)
      • Defendants transferred from a Magistrates' Court or Children’s Court to a Higher Court (or vice versa) are considered as finalised twice (once in each of the courts)
      • Defendants transferred from the Magistrates' or Children's Courts to Specialist Courts for finalisation (e.g. Drug Courts, Indigenous Courts) are considered finalised (by transfer) in the criminal court that initiated the transfer. Defendants may then, upon completion of the program, return to the court that requested the transfer, for an additional finalisation

      From 2019–20 onwards, transfers are excluded from defendant counts in some tables in order to remove the double-counting of defendants who were transferred and subsequently adjudicated in a different court level. Excluding transfers enables a more accurate representation of defendant characteristics, particularly for more serious offences where transfers are more common.

      Data processing

      Data items

      Defendants who were finalised for more than one offence will have counting rules applied to determine their principal method of finalisation, offence, sentence type and other characteristics for inclusion in data tables.

      Age

      The age in years presented in this collection refers to the age of the defendant at the date their matter(s) was finalised in the criminal courts.

      Sex

      The categories used for defendant sex are male, female, organisations, other, and unknown. The number of defendants in the category of ‘other’ is currently not published due to small numbers and inconsistent use, though these defendants are included within the total.

      Court levels

      Data are reported at three court levels: Higher Courts, Magistrates’ Courts and Children’s Courts.

      In this publication, the Higher Courts comprises the Supreme and Intermediate Courts. All states and territories have a Supreme Court that deals with the most serious criminal matters, generally referred to as an indictable offence (such as serious sexual offences or drug trafficking). The larger states (New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia) also have an intermediate level of court, known as the District Court or County Court, which deal with most serious offences. All defendants that are dealt with by the Higher Courts have an automatic entitlement to a trial before a judge and jury. In some states and territories, the defendant may elect to have their matter(s) heard before a judge alone.

      The lowest level of Criminal Court is the Magistrates’ Court (also known as the Court of Summary Jurisdiction, Local Court or Court of Petty Sessions) which hears most criminal cases. Cases heard in the Magistrates’ Courts do not involve a jury – rather, a magistrate determines whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty. Children treated as adults by the courts may also be finalised in the Magistrates' or Higher Courts.

      Each state and territory has Children's Courts to deal with offences alleged to have been committed by a child. These courts mainly hear summary proceedings but do have the power to hear indictable matters in some states and territories. A person can only be charged with a criminal offence where they are aged 10 years or over. Defendants are considered to be a child where they are under 18 years of age at the time they committed an offence. Prior to February 2018, defendants in Queensland were considered to be a child by the courts where they were aged under 17 years.

        Method of finalisation

        Method of finalisation refers to how a criminal charge is concluded by a criminal court. The Method of Finalisation Classification contains the main categories of:

        • Adjudicated finalisation – a judgement or decision by the court as to whether or not the defendant is guilty of the charge(s) against them
        • Non-adjudicated finalisation – a charge(s) considered to have been completed even though a judgement has not been handed down by the court (e.g. withdrawn by the prosecution, defendant deceased, unfit to plead, or transfers to non-court agencies)
        • Transfers to other court levels – a court order for the criminal charge(s) to be transferred to another court level for adjudication or sentencing

        Principal federal offence (ANZSOC)

        Federal offences are charges against Commonwealth legislation. For this collection, federal offences have been coded to the Australian and New Zealand Standard Offence Classification (ANZSOC), 2011.

        For ease of reading, some ANZSOC offence names have been abbreviated throughout this publication as follows:

        • Dangerous or negligent acts endangering persons appear as 'Dangerous/negligent acts'
        • Abduction, harassment and other offences against the person appear as 'Abduction/harassment'
        • Robbery, extortion and related offences appear as ‘Robbery/extortion’
        • Unlawful entry with intent/burglary, break and enter appear as 'Unlawful entry with intent'
        • Theft and related offences appear as ‘Theft’
        • Fraud, deception and related offences appear as ‘Fraud/deception’
        • Prohibited and regulated weapons and explosives offences appear as 'Weapons/explosives'
        • Offences against justice procedures, government security and government operations appear as 'Offences against justice'
        • Child pornography is also referred to as child abuse material offences.

        For defendants with multiple offence charges finalised at the same time, the following are used to assign a principal federal offence:

        For 2017–18 and prior years, the principal federal offence is based on the method of finalisation and NOI only. The 2020–21 publication introduced sentence type and length/amount to the principal federal offence allocation rule, for data from 2018–19 onwards. The new derivation applies only to the ANZSOC principal offence, not the federal offence groups.

        Where a defendant has multiple charges, their principal federal offence is determined using a multi-step process. The first is to code the outcome for each offence to a method of finalisation group, which is then ranked as follows:

        • Defendant deceased, unfit to plead, or not guilty by reason of mental illness
        • Charges with guilty outcome
        • Charges not proven
        • Transfer of charges to other court levels
        • Charges withdrawn
        • Other non-adjudicated finalisation
        • Unknown/not stated

        The charge with the highest ranked method of finalisation group is allocated as the principal federal offence.

        If there are multiple charges with the same method of finalisation group, the offence with the most serious sentence (based on the Sentence Type Classification) is allocated as the principal federal offence. If multiple charges received the same sentence type, the offence with the greatest sentence length/amount is allocated as the principal federal offence.

        The NOI, which ranks offences according to perceived seriousness, is used to select the principal federal offence where there are multiple charges and they have the same method of finalisation group, sentence type and sentence length/amount.

        Principal federal offence groups

        The federal offence groups presented in this collection provide an alternate way (to the ANZSOC) of grouping federal offences, based on offence types that are of particular interest to users of federal defendants data.

        The federal offence groups presented are based on the Commonwealth legislation the defendant was charged under, with the exception of offences against the Criminal Code Act 1995, Crimes Act 1914, Migration Act 1958, Competition and Consumer Act 2010 and Corporations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Act 2006 which are assigned using both Act and Section level information. The groups are subject to regular review, following changes to federal legislation or emerging user needs.

        The federal offence groups are not a formal ABS standard nor related to ANZSOC, and may comprise offences that reside in different ANZSOC divisions. For the definitions of groups and the Commonwealth Acts, sections and ANZSOC categories contained within each group refer to the federal offence groups.

        Note that prior to 2019–20, the category 'Commonwealth sexual offences' included sexual offences against a minor. These offences have now been included in the new ‘Child sexual abuse offences’ category, which is an expansion and re-labelling of the previous ‘Child sexual exploitation offences’ category. 

        A principal federal offence group is assigned for each defendant by selecting their highest ranking ANZSOC offence (based on the NOI) and then using the underlying legislation to select the corresponding federal offence group. Where there is more than one federal offence group associated with the defendant's highest ranking ANZSOC offence, a secondary hierarchy (of federal offence categories) is applied to select the principal federal offence group.

        Principal sentence 

        The principal federal sentence is the most serious sentence given to a defendant for their federal offences with guilty outcomes. For ease of reading, the term is abbreviated to principal sentence throughout this publication.

        Defendants can receive:

        • A single sentence for a single offence with a guilty outcome
        • A single sentence for multiple offences with a guilty outcome
        • Multiple sentences for a single offence with a guilty outcome
        • Multiple sentences for multiple offences with a guilty outcome

        In some cases, defendants with a method of finalisation of 'not guilty by reason of mental illness/condition' may have some kind of sentence/order imposed. However, these sentences are not included in this collection.

        Defendants with more than one sentence type (for either a single offence or multiple offences) are assigned a principal sentence, which is intended to reflect the most serious sentence based on the hierarchy of the Sentence Type Classification.

        Duration

        Duration is a measure of court timeliness, representing the time taken (in days) between the date a defendant’s case(s) was initiated in court and the date they ceased to be an item of work for the court as follows:

        Duration = Date of finalisation – Date of initiation + 1

        Revisions

        The rules to determine the principal federal offence (the 'most serious' federal offence) have been updated and applied to data from 2018–19 onwards.

        Mean and median age for 2018–19 and 2019–20 have been revised.

        Data release

        Classifications

        Classifications provide a framework for organising and presenting data in a comparable and consistent manner. The key classifications used for this collection are:

        For further information, select each of the classifications above or from the contents list.

        Confidentiality

        The Census and Statistics Act 1905 provides the authority for the ABS to collect statistical information, and requires that statistical output shall not be published or disseminated in a manner that is likely to enable the identification of a particular person or organisation. To minimise the risk of identifying individuals in aggregate statistics, a technique called perturbation is used to randomly adjust cell values and summary variables. This technique involves small random adjustment of the data and is considered the most satisfactory technique for avoiding the release of identifiable statistics while maximising the range of information that can be released.

        The result of perturbation is that a given published cell value will be consistent across all tables, but the sum of the components may add to more or less than 100%. Readers are advised to use the published totals rather than deriving totals based on the components. Small values (less than 20) may be proportionally more affected by perturbation than large values. Users are advised against conducting analyses and drawing conclusions based on small values. It is recommended that totals aggregated from multiple years should be used for reporting and analysis.

        Data comparability

        National comparability

        National standards and classifications are used in this collection to produce nationally comparable data. However, various factors can impact data quality and comparability, including:

        • Challenges with meeting national standards due to courts data systems being designed for the purpose of administration of court business (as opposed to national statistical purposes)
        • Modification over time to data systems and methodology used to extract/compile data
        • Refinements to data quality procedures
        • Legislative or operational differences across states and territories (e.g. differences in the types of matters able to be heard, and the sentencing options available to the courts).

        The Federal Defendants collection presents a subset of all defendants finalised in Australia's criminal courts, as published in Criminal Courts, Australia. However, a federal defendant may also be finalised for state or territory offences in the same reference period, so the difference between all defendants and federal defendants does not equal the count of defendants with state/territory offences.

        The data in this publication may not be comparable to data published in other national and state/territory publications due to differing scope and counting rules.

        State and Territory comparability

        The following information highlights events or processes unique to a state or territory that may have impacted on the data for the Federal Defendants collection. Where a state or territory is not listed below, there are no specific notes for that state or territory for this release. For other issues specific to a state or territory that have impacted on the Criminal Courts collection more generally, refer to ‘State and territory specific information’ in the Methodology of Criminal Courts, Australia.

        New South Wales

        Duration data for the Magistrates' and Children's Courts are based on the date of first appearance rather than the date of registration, as date of registration is not captured in the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research's system (from which New South Wales courts data are derived). As such, the median duration in New South Wales Magistrates’ and Children’s Courts may be lower than in some other states and territories. This issue does not impact the Higher Courts data.

        Northern Territory

        Unlike other states and territories, the date of initiation in Magistrates’ and Children’s Courts in the Northern Territory is based on the earliest of: the date the case was filed, the date the case was created, or the date of first appearance.

        Australian Capital Territory

        The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) historically had a high proportion of defendants with a principal federal offence of Traffic and vehicle regulatory offences compared with most other states and territories. This was due to parking offences being lodged under commonwealth legislation specific to the Australian National University. From 2019–20 a significant amount of these offences were lodged under the ACT Road Transport (Road Rules) Regulation which is outside the scope of the Federal Defendants collection, resulting in a decrease in the number of federal defendants in the ACT. 

        Method of finalisation classification

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        Australian and New Zealand Standard Offence Classification (ANZSOC)

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        Federal offence group

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        Sentence type classification

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        Abbreviations

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        Glossary

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