This publication presents statistics about alleged offenders who were proceeded against by police during the 12-month reference period, for all states and territories. This includes information about the most serious offence, referred to as the principal offence, associated with an alleged offender (after this referred to as an offender). Statistics are also presented on the number of proceedings that police initiated in the form of court and non-court actions for all states and territories except Western Australia.
Statistics in this publication are derived from information about offenders collected by the ABS from administrative records held by the state and territory police agencies.
Scope and coverage
The scope of the collection includes all offenders, aged 10 years and over, who have been proceeded against by police during the reference period of 1 July to 30 June. Persons under the age of 10 are excluded from the collection as the minimum age of criminal responsibility in all Australian states and territories is 10 years.
All criminal offences where police agencies have the authority to take legal action against an individual are included, with some exclusions.
The scope excludes the following:
- persons less than 10 years of age
- organisations
- offences that come under the authority of agencies other than state and territory police, such as Environmental Protection Authorities, etc.
- proceedings initiated by the Australian Federal Police
Due to quality and/or comparability issues, or an inability to supply data to the ABS, the statistics presented in this publication exclude the following:
- traffic offence information specifically related to ANZSOC division 14 traffic and vehicle regulatory offences and subdivision 041 dangerous or negligent operation of a vehicle
- ANZSOC group 1523 breach of bail
- Indigenous status data for offenders in Victoria, Western Australia and Tasmania
- number of times proceeded against data and police proceedings data for Western Australia
- method of proceeding data for South Australia and the Northern Territory