Recorded Crime - Offenders methodology

Recorded Crime – Offenders 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 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.

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 2022 to 30 June 2023. Persons under the age of 10 are excluded from the collection as the minimum age of criminal responsibility in all Australian states and territories during the reference period 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

Data is compiled based on the date that police initiated action, or proceeded against, an offender (e.g the date the offender was charged, the date the offender was cautioned, etc.). The date the offender was proceeded against by police may not be the date when the offence occurred, or the date when the offender came to the attention of police. In some jurisdictions the data may reflect the date of record creation rather than date of action; however, this does not have a significant impact on the comparability of data across jurisdictions for offenders as there are no major lags between the two dates.

For the offender population, an offender is only counted once, irrespective of how many offences they may have committed within the same incident or how many times they were dealt with by police during the reference period. 

For the police proceeding population, an offender may be counted more than once if proceeded against on separate occasions by police during the reference period. Data is presented for both court and non-court proceedings where available.

Offence information presented in this publication relates to the principal offence allegedly committed by an individual offender during the reference period. These statistics are not designed to provide a count of the total number of individual offences that come to the attention of police. 

For the offender counts, where a single offence is processed by police during the reference period, the offender is assigned that offence as their principal offence. Where multiple offences are committed by an offender, they are assigned a principal offence using the ABS National Offence Index (NOI). 

For the police proceeding counts, offenders who are proceeded against more than once in the reference period are assigned a principal offence for each separate date of police action. The following diagram provides an illustration of the assigning of a principal offence and the resulting counts for both populations.

For offender counts, the principal method of proceeding is the method associated with the principal offence assigned to that offender. For police proceeding counts, the principal method of proceeding is the method linked to each principal offence for each separate date of police action.

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. This requirement means that the ABS must ensure that any statistical information about individuals cannot be derived from published data.

To minimise the risk of identifying individuals in aggregate statistics, a technique is used to randomly adjust cell values and summary variables. This technique is called perturbation and was applied to the Recorded Crime – Offenders collection for the first time for the 2013–14 release. Perturbation involves small random adjustment of the statistics and is considered the most satisfactory technique for avoiding the release of identifiable statistics while maximising the range of information that can be released. These adjustments have a negligible impact on the underlying pattern of the statistics.

After perturbation, a given published cell value will be consistent across all tables. However, the sum of components of a total will not necessarily give the same result as the published total in a particular table. As such, proportions may add to more or less than 100%. Readers are advised to use the published totals rather than deriving totals based on the component cells. 

Cells with relatively small values may be proportionally more affected by perturbation than large values. Users are advised against conducting analyses and drawing conclusions based on small values.

Perturbation has been applied to the data presented in this publication. Previously, a different technique was used to confidentialise the data and therefore there may be small differences between historical data presented in this publication and data published in previous issues of this publication.

Offender rates are expressed as the number of offenders per 100,000 of the ABS Estimated Resident Population (ERP). This method derives what are sometimes referred to as "crude rates". These rates generally accord with international and state and territory practice, and enable the comparison of the extent and type of offending across the individual states and territories, as well as a comparison over time.

For smaller populations, there are instances where the figure produced for the offender rate is higher than the actual number of offenders recorded. Users are advised to consider the numbers as well as the rates to avoid misinterpretation.

Rates for the offender population are calculated using the ERP at the midpoint of the reference period (e.g. 31 December 2022 for the 2022–23 reference period). The ERP used in the calculation of these rates is for persons aged 10 years and over for all states and territories. Where rates are presented for a sex or age group, the ERP used in the calculation of the rates refers to the relevant sex or age group.

ERP estimates and projections applied for the Australian Capital Territory exclude Jervis Bay Territory. All estimates and projections for Australia exclude the external territories of Christmas Island and Cocos (Keeling) Islands.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander offender rates are expressed per 100,000 of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population aged 10 years and over. The offender rates presented in this issue are derived from the estimated population for the years 2009 to 2016, as well as the Series B projections of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population, from the ABS publication Estimates and Projections, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, 2006 to 2031. 

These population estimates and projections are as at 30 June. An estimate for December 31 is then created by taking the average of the population estimates or projections at 30 June of that year and the following year. These figures are used to derive offender rates for each year. 

Rates for the non-Indigenous population are calculated using the total ERP of persons aged 10 years and over for each state or territory minus the projected Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population aged 10 years and over.

Age standardisation is a statistical method that adjusts crude rates to account for age differences between study populations.

There are differences in the age distributions between Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous populations, with the former having a much younger population. In 2001, the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 18 years and over was 55%, compared with 76% of non-Indigenous people (and 75% of the total Australian population). The diagram below illustrates the differences in age distributions. 

Due to the differing age profiles, using crude rates to examine differences between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous populations may lead to erroneous conclusions being drawn about variables that are correlated with age.

By making comparisons across age groups, we know that offender rates are negatively correlated with age. If we compare overall offender rates between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous persons, it is likely that the offender rate in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population will be higher because of the larger proportion of young people in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population. Therefore, age standardised Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous offender rates have been presented in Table 26 of this publication.

The standard population used for age standardisation is the total Australian Estimated Resident Population at 30 June 2001. The standard population is revised every twenty-five years; the next revision will be based on final data from the 2026 Census of Population and Housing.

National offender statistics are compiled to maximise comparability across states and territories. This collection has been designed to facilitate these comparisons through the application of common national statistical standards and counting rules. However, some legislative and processing differences remain. The following information highlights differences that may have had an impact on the data for this collection. This may include differences in recording practices, legislation, or policy to combat particular types of crime.

Australia’s federal, state and territory governments put restrictions in place to slow the spread of Coronavirus (COVID-19) from March 2020 to February 2023. The restrictions, and associated penalties for breaching these restrictions, varied across the jurisdictions. This should be considered when interpreting the Recorded Crime – Offenders data for the associated reference periods. 

Offences specifically related to the COVID-19 restrictions were coded to ANZSOC 1629 public health and safety offences, n.e.c. This data is included in the output for ANZSOC division 16 miscellaneous. 

The general offender counting unit presents data by principal offence and does not reflect the total number of offenders or proceedings related to a COVID-19 offence. A separate counting unit was created to count those offenders/proceedings and was presented in the 2019–20 to 2021–22 releases. 

Coverage

This publication only presents Indigenous status data for New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory. Based on ABS assessment, Indigenous status data for other jurisdictions was not of sufficient quality and/or did not meet ABS standards for self-identification for national reporting in 2022–23.

Data about Indigenous status for the Australian Capital Territory is included in this publication for the 2013–14 reference period onwards. In some instances, Indigenous status is obtained by ACT Police without giving the offender the opportunity to self-identify. However, consultation with ACT Police showed that the proportion of records not obtained via self-identification was low, and the impact on the data was minimal.

Unknown values

As Indigenous status is based on self-identification by the offender, identification is difficult where police proceed by way of a penalty notice as this method does not usually provide an opportunity for police to ask individuals to self-identify. This results in a large proportion of unknown values for Indigenous status for offenders proceeded against via penalty notice. As such, Indigenous status data in this publication excludes penalty notices. Therefore, offender counts and rates presented in this publication do not include all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander offenders proceeded against by police.

The proportion of all offenders proceeded against by police by way of a penalty notice during 2022–23 was:

• New South Wales – 17%
• Queensland – 8%
• South Australia – 31%
• Northern Territory – 26%
• Australian Capital Territory – 2%

The use of penalty notices by police is most prevalent for fare evasion, public order offences, and miscellaneous offences. The removal of those offenders who were proceeded against via a penalty notice results in reduced offender counts and rates for these four offence divisions in particular.

The proportion of offenders with a 'not stated' Indigenous status varies by offence type.

Due to variation in the quality of New South Wales and South Australian data over multiple reference periods, caution is recommended when interpreting data by Indigenous status. Further information is available in the New South Wales and South Australia sections.

Enforcement of laws and regulations on public transport is the responsibility of state and territory police and/or third party organisations. Data on offenders proceeded against by authorities other than police is out of scope of the Recorded Crime – Offenders collection. Due to the variance in police responsibility for public transport related offences across states and territories, an additional offence of fare evasion has been introduced to the principal offence categories to assist with the comparability of theft data across jurisdictions. The separation of this offence from the theft data has been applied to all data tables in which principal offence is presented. The data has been excluded from the theft and related offences division data but is included in the offender totals. The fare evasion offence category is presented in selected tables.

This action could only be applied for the 2014–15 reference period onwards. Users are advised not to compare data on offenders with a principal offence of theft to earlier reference periods as fare evasion cannot be separated from ANZSOC group 0829 theft (except motor vehicles), n.e.c. for the reference periods 2008–09 to 2013–14.

Please refer to notes for New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia for other information on fare evasion data in those jurisdictions.

New South Wales legislation does not contain discrete offences of stalking, intimidation and harassment. As these offences cannot be disaggregated, offenders proceeded against for stalking, intimidation and harassment have been coded to ANZSOC group 0291 stalking. Therefore, this group may be overstated and ANZSOC division 05 abduction/harassment may be understated. Caution should be used when making comparisons with other states and territories.

Due to variation in the quality of New South Wales data over recent reference periods, caution is recommended when interpreting data by Indigenous status:

• The proportion of offenders with an unknown Indigenous status in New South Wales decreased by 31% between 2020–21 and 2021–22 due to recording changes at the operational level. 
• During 2022–23 a new legal action type for proceeding against offenders for fare evasion was introduced in New South Wales. Indigenous status data is not recorded for these proceedings and the level of unknowns for this data item has increased from 2021–22. 

Some fines issued by the NSW Police Force for COVID-19 related offences were later cancelled. Offenders proceeded against for these COVID-19 related offence fines are included in the Recorded Crime – Offenders data, as they were proceeded against by police and cancelled later in the justice process.

From 1 May 2012 the NSW Police Force took over the role of policing the state's public transport network, through a dedicated Police Transport Command. This led to increases from 2012–13 in the number of offenders and proceedings in some ANZSOC categories, including theft (due to fare evasion), fraud and public order offences. These offences are most often proceeded against by way of a penalty notice. 

Verbal warnings and compliance notices were included for the first time in 2009–10 and resulted in an increase in non-court proceedings in NSW. They relate mainly to licensing enforcement (i.e. liquor, security industry, firearms). A verbal warning is a less formal process which informs the person that some breach of regulations needs to be corrected. A compliance notice is a written warning with a stipulated time period within which the breach must be corrected.

Victorian data includes offenders proceeded against for fare evasion by Victoria Police (including Protective Service Officers). Data on offenders proceeded against by authorised officers employed by the public transport operators for fare evasion is out of scope of the Recorded Crime – Offenders collection.

A change in recording practices in Queensland impacts data from the 2021-22 reference period onwards. From 1 July 2021, Queensland police officers must record all criminal offences associated with a Family and Domestic Violence (FDV) incident investigation. This results in an increase in the number of offenders of FDV related acts intended to cause injury and FDV related property damage. Users are advised to use caution when making comparisons to data before 2021-22.

Queensland has a relatively high number of offenders with an unknown principal offence compared with other jurisdictions. This is due to the Queensland Police offender system containing reported offence details which are quite broad in their description. Where this occurs it may not be possible to determine the most serious offence, resulting in the principal offence being recorded as unknown. 

A review was undertaken for the 2016–17 publication to determine if the number of offenders with an unknown principal offence could be reduced. This review found that a proportion of records with an unknown offence code should be coded to ANZSOC division 14 traffic and vehicle regulatory offences and so were out of the scope of the Recorded Crime – Offenders collection. These records have been excluded from the 2014–15 data onwards. Users are advised to exercise caution when making comparisons to data before 2014–15 as the total number of offenders for earlier years are overstated. 

For public order offences, in comparison with other states and territories, Queensland Police make greater use of arrest, summons, cautions, and notices to appear as an action against an offender, and only limited use of penalty notices. This results in Queensland having the highest proportion of court actions of any state or territory for public order offences. 

Queensland data includes offenders proceeded against for fare evasion by the Queensland Police Service Rail Squad. Data on offenders proceeded against for fare evasion by TransLink Senior Network Officers or Queensland Rail Authorised officers is out of scope of the Recorded Crime – Offenders collection. 

The issuing of infringement notices or 'e-ticketing' by Queensland Police for public nuisance offences commenced from 8 November 2010. These offences include: public nuisance, public urination, obstruct police officer (in relation to the aforementioned public nuisance or public urination) and contravene requirement of a police officer (in relation to stating correct name and address regarding the above). The introduction of this method of proceeding resulted in an increase in non-court proceedings in Queensland.

New data management system

South Australia Police began recording offender data in a new data management system from November 2018. The 2018–19 offender data for South Australia includes data from the previous system for July to November 2018 and from the new system from November 2018 to June 2019. Users are advised to use caution when analysing this data, especially when comparing to earlier reference periods, as the impact of this change on the data is unknown.

Data by method of proceeding is currently not available for South Australia from 2018–19 onwards due to the introduction of the new crime recording system.

Formal cautions/warnings

South Australia Police provided data for formal cautions/warnings and conferences for the first time in 2013–14. From 2013–14 to 2015–16 these methods of proceeding were only used for juvenile offenders. During the 2016–17 reference period South Australia police began issuing formal cautions and warnings to adult offenders for selected offences. The inclusion of this data for juvenile offenders in 2013–14 onwards and adult offenders in 2016–17 resulted in increases in the proportion of non-court actions for these reference periods.

Indigenous status

Due to variation in the quality of South Australian data over recent reference periods, caution is recommended when interpreting data by Indigenous status.

In 2016–17, there were two key changes in the quality of the Indigenous status data: 

• Increased use of formal cautions and warnings as a method of proceeding in South Australia increased the number of offenders with an 'unknown' Indigenous status for the 2016–17 and 2017–18 reference periods.
• South Australia police supplied Indigenous status data for offenders proceeded against via drug diversions for the first time in the 2016–17 reference period, which reduced the number of records with an ‘unknown’ Indigenous status by approximately 97%. This increased the total number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander offenders and non-Indigenous offenders for South Australia when compared with data from previous years. In addition, the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander offenders and non-Indigenous offenders with a principal offence of illicit drugs offences have increased due to the inclusion of Indigenous status data for drug diversions when compared with data from earlier reference periods.

The introduction of the new crime recording system in November 2018 has resulted in fluctuations in the proportion of offenders with an unknown Indigenous status from 2018–19.

Unlinked databases

Caution should be exercised when interpreting counts of offenders and proceedings with a principal offence of illicit drug offences for South Australia as the data may be overstated. Data relating to offenders issued with cannabis expiation notices and drug diversions is stored on separate infringement databases and this information cannot be linked to other databases that store information about offenders. As the databases cannot be linked, if an offender was proceeded against for multiple offences during the same reference period then they may be counted more than once, resulting in an over count of the total number of offenders, rates and police proceedings for South Australia. 

General expiation notices may be issued for public order offences and offences against justice, and are stored on an infringement database that cannot be linked with other police databases that contain information about offenders. As a result, offenders with a principal offence of public order offences or offences against justice may be overstated as an offender may be counted more than once if they were proceeded against for multiple offences during the same reference period.

Fare evasion

Infringement notices for public transport fare evasion offences in South Australia can be issued by the Public Transport Safety Branch (part of South Australia Police) or Adelaide Metro Prescribed Officers. This publication contains data on police proceedings only. As such, infringements issued by the metro officers are out of scope of the Recorded Crime – Offenders collection .

Western Australia Police use two separate crime recording systems for the Recorded Crime – Offenders collection. Data from both systems undergo a matching process to enable the production of offender statistics and associated demographic and offence information presented within this publication. Users should be aware that data may be slightly overstated as a result of the identifier matching process. 

Data about police proceedings is unable to be successfully matched between the two separate crime recording systems used by Western Australia Police. Therefore data relating to police proceedings for Western Australia is not included in this publication. This affects Tables 16 and 17 and precludes the production of national data about police proceedings or the number of times an offender was proceeded against by police.

Western Australia Police applied a number of revisions to their offence coding in the 2017–18 and 2018–19 data for national statistical purposes. This impacts on a range of offences and results in the data by offence for some categories being not comparable to previous reference periods.

Over the time series, offence coding changes have been implemented by Tasmania Police including:

• From 2015–16 offences related to boating previously incorrectly mapped to division 16 miscellaneous offences were correctly mapped to division 14 traffic and vehicle regulatory offences (and therefore out of the scope of the Recorded Crime – Offenders collection). Users are advised to exercise caution when making comparisons to data before 2015–16 as the data for earlier years is overstated.
• Changes were made in 2012–13, with the most notable impact being the movement of some offenders previously coded to ANZSOC group 1312 criminal intent to group 1121 unlawfully obtain or possess regulated weapons/explosives, and group 1122 misuse of regulated weapons/explosives.
• Changes were made in 2011–12, with the most notable impact being the movement of some offenders previously coded to ANZSOC group 1322 liquor and tobacco offences to group 1541 resist or hinder government official (excluding police officer, justice official or government security officer), and group 1562 resist or hinder police officer or justice official.
• Changes were made in 2009–10, with the most notable impact being the movement of the offence of smoking in a vehicle with a child present moved from ANZSOC group 0491 to 1326

Users are advised to exercise caution when making comparisons between data before and after these coding changes.

From 4 April 2011, Tasmania Police were only able to proceed against youth offenders for minor drug offences under the Youth Justice Act 1997, rather than give Illicit Drug Diversion Initiative cautions and diversions. This resulted in an increased number of court actions for youth offenders for illicit drug offences between 2009–10 and 2010–11.

From 1 August 2023, the minimum age of criminal responsibility in the Northern Territory is 12 years. Aggregated data of offenders proceeded against between 1 July 2022 and 30 June 2023 (the latest data presented in this publication) has not been impacted by this change.

An internal review of recording practices and systems undertaken by the Northern Territory Police in 2015 highlighted concerns with the method of proceeding data and, as such, data on police proceedings for the Northern Territory was not included in the 2014–15 and 2015–16 publications. Due to system constraints, an accurate method of proceeding (court or non-court action) could not always be determined. Subsequent investigation determined that the issue was limited to the method of proceeding data and that total police proceedings data is of sufficient quality for publication. Total police proceedings data for NT is included in the police proceedings data cube but not by method of proceeding.

Northern Territory Police are unable to provide cautions or warnings data, as these methods are largely used informally and are not recorded in the primary proceedings system. It is estimated that there are very few instances where such methods are used and therefore the impact on the data presented in this publication is minimal.

There are a small proportion of offenders that come into contact with police who are unable to provide their exact date of birth. In these situations, where only a birth year is provided, police may allocate a nominal birth date or alternatively, police may record the offender's date of birth as unknown.

Criminal infringement notices (CINs) were introduced on 24 December 2009 for a range of minor public order offences, including defacing premises, urinating in public, failing to comply with noise abatement direction and consuming liquor in a prescribed public place. CINs are aimed at having an immediate deterrent effect on an offender while providing an alternative to court action. These offences are recorded separately to the primary Australian Capital Territory police recording system.

Caution should be exercised when interpreting data on counts of offenders and proceedings for the ACT. As the CINs data is recorded on a separate system, this information cannot be linked to other databases that store information about offenders. Therefore, if an offender had been proceeded against for multiple offences recorded across the separate systems then that offender would be counted more than once. This may result in an over count of the total number of offenders, rates and police proceedings for the Australian Capital Territory. 

Additionally, CINs data does not contain unique identifiers attached to the records. Therefore, if an offender had received multiple CINs during the reference period they may be counted multiple times. This may result in an over count of the total number of offenders, rates and police proceedings for the Australian Capital Territory.

This release provides statistics about offenders of selected family and domestic violence (FDV) related offences, as recorded on state and territory police administrative recording systems.

Prior to the 2022-23 release, the FDV data had been presented as experimental, with further work required to improve the comparability and quality of the data before including it in the main suite of the publication. From 2022-23 onwards the experimental data label has been removed. However, this data should be interpreted with caution, considering the factors described throughout the methodology.

Data items for FDV have been collected from the 2014–15 reference period, with variation in coverage over the collection cycles. Data is presented in this publication for:

• Queensland from 2018–19
• South Australia from 2019–20
• Combined national data from 2019–20
• Other time series data, where available, from 2016–17

There is no single nationally or internationally agreed definition of ‘family and domestic violence’, and the terminology used to refer to ‘FDV behaviours’ varies across policy, legislative, service provision, and research contexts. Further, definitions and understandings of FDV have (and may continue) to evolve, including the behaviours and/or relationship types that are considered to be familial or domestic in nature.

FDV can include a wide range of violent and non-violent abusive behaviours or threats, such as:

• Physical and sexual violence or abuse
• Emotional and psychological abuse
• Verbal abuse and intimidation
• Economic abuse
• Social deprivation and controlling behaviours
• Damage of personal property
• Abuse of power

The types of relationships involved in FDV can include (but are not limited to):

• Intimate partner relationships
• Other family and co-habitation relationships
• Siblings
• Children
• Carer relationships
• Cultural and kinship relationships
• Foster care relationships
• Blood relatives who do not co-habit

Differences in the state and territory legislation used to determine the types of behaviours and relationships that constitute a family and domestic violence offence should be considered when interpreting data in this publication.

Within the context of national Recorded Crime – Offenders statistics, an FDV related offence is defined as:

"An offence involving at least two persons who are in a specified family or domestic relationship and which has been determined by police officers to be family and/or domestic violence related as part of their investigation."

A specified family or domestic relationship includes:

• Partner/spouse/husband/wife (including former)
• Boyfriend/girlfriend (including ex-boyfriend/girlfriend)
• Parent (including step-parents)
• Child (including step-children)
• Other relatives (including but not limited to grandparents, siblings, aunt/uncle, cousin, niece/nephew)
• Carer
• Kinship relationships

For the purposes of this publication, FDV related offences are limited to the following ANZSOC division/subdivision offence types:

• 01 Homicide and related offences
• 02 Acts intended to cause injury
• 03 Sexual assault and related offences
• 05 Abduction, harassment and other offences against the person
• 121 Property damage
• 153 Breach of violence and non-violence orders

Data presented within this release is based primarily on an FDV flag as recorded by police officers where they have determined an offence or incident to be FDV related as defined by the relevant state or territory legislation under which they operate, or identified as being within a specified family or domestic relationship.

The FDV flag is recorded in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia and Northern Territory Police systems at a proceeding level. This may result in a small number of offences in these jurisdictions being flagged as FDV related which did not occur within a specified family or domestic relationship. For example, this may occur when police charge an offender with an FDV related offence as well as an additional offence which occurred against a stranger in the same incident and was dealt with by police as part of the same proceeding.

For the purposes of improving data quality and comparability, known relationship information is drawn upon to identify offenders within a specified family relationship that were not flagged as FDV related by police. Where detailed relationship of offender to victim information is available, offences flagged as FDV related but which occurred against a stranger are removed from the data; and offences flagged as non FDV related but occurring within a specified family or domestic relationship are treated as FDV related. 

This relationship information was available for:

• Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory from 2014–15
• Western Australia from 2015–16
• New South Wales from 2016–17
• Queensland from 2018–19
• South Australia from 2019–20

This data was not available for Tasmania and the Northern Territory.

Offences which were flagged by police to be FDV related but occurred against a police officer were also removed where they were able to be identified.

In the Australian Capital Territory the FDV flag is recorded on police systems at an offence level. This means that the flag is applied separately to each individual offence. Therefore only offences which occurred within a specified family or domestic relationship are flagged by police as FDV related.

There are three counting units presented in the data:

• FDV offenders
• FDV proceedings
• FDV breach of violence and non-violence orders

The FDV offender population counts persons who were proceeded against by police for at least one selected offence which was flagged as FDV related by police or identified as occurring within a specified family or domestic violence relationship. An offender is only counted once irrespective of how many offences they may have committed within the same incident or how many times they were dealt with by police during the reference period.

For the FDV police proceeding population, an offender may be counted more than once if proceeded against on separate occasions by police during the reference period.

Where an offender was proceeded against for multiple FDV related offences during the reference period, they were assigned a principal FDV related offence which has been determined based on the National Offence Index. Any non-FDV related offences were excluded before the ranking process. Therefore, users should be aware that the statistics presented in data cube 6 are not comparable with other data presented within this publication.

The offenders of FDV related breach of violence and non-violence orders population counts all persons who were proceeded against at least once for this offence when the action was flagged as FDV related by police or identified as occurring within a specified family or domestic relationship during the reference period. Different to the general population offender count, in order to count all FDV related breaches of violence and non-violence orders, a principal offence has not been assigned to each offender. Therefore, this count includes offenders with multiple FDV related offences who would have been assigned a more serious principal offence in the general FDV offender population. As a result of the differing methodologies, the count of offenders with an FDV related breach of violence and non-violence order is likely to be greater than the number of offenders with a principal offence of FDV related breaches in the general FDV offender population.

The comparability of data about offenders of FDV related offences may vary across time periods and the selected states and territories due to many factors including:

• Differences in existing state and territory legislation which determine the types of behaviours and relationships which constitute a family and domestic violence offence
• Differences or changes in state/territory police operations, business rules and recording practices
• Differences or changes in reporting behaviour
• Limitations in the quality or availability of data recorded on various administrative systems used by police

Queensland has more FDV offenders with a principal offence of breaches of violence orders and less FDV offenders with a principal offence of acts intended to cause injury. Prior to 1 July 2021, in Queensland where an FDV incident occurred involving an alleged assault the following procedures were generally followed:

• If there was an existing violence order, a breach of that order was recorded but the associated assault may not have been recorded against the offender record.
• If there was no violence order and the victim did not consent to proceeding with an assault charge, the police created an incident record and may have issued a police protection order. The assault offence may not have been recorded in the crime recording system against an offender.

A change in recording practices in Queensland impacts the data from 2021-22 onwards. From 1 July 2021, Queensland police officers must record all criminal offences associated with an FDV incident investigation. This has resulted in an increase in the number of offenders of FDV related acts intended to cause injury and FDV related property damage. Users are advised to use caution when comparing Queensland FDV offender data for 2021-22 onwards to previous reference periods.

Tasmanian data about offenders with FDV related offences is only available for offenders proceeded against by court action, and only for the following relationships:

• Partner/spouse/husband/wife (including former)
• Boyfriend/girlfriend (including ex-boyfriend/girlfriend)

The national classifications used to collect and produce data about offenders are:

• Australian and New Zealand Standard Offence Classification (ANZSOC)
• National Offence Index (NOI)
• Method of Proceeding

ANZSOC provides a uniform national framework for classifying offences across Australia and New Zealand for statistical purposes. The classification is a hierarchical structure allowing for varying degrees of detail to be published depending on the level of detail in the source information. Associated with the classification are coding rules which ensure that the counting of information is consistent across states and territories. For further information about ANZSOC refer to Australian and New Zealand Standard Offence Classification, 2011.

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

• Dangerous or negligent acts endangering persons appears as 'dangerous/negligent acts'
• Abduction, harassment and other offences against the person appears as 'abduction/harassment'
• Robbery, extortion and related offences appears as ‘robbery/extortion’
• Unlawful entry with intent/burglary, break and enter appears as 'unlawful entry with intent'
• Theft and related offences appears as ‘theft’
• Fraud, deception and related offences appears as ‘fraud/deception’
• Prohibited and regulated weapons and explosives offences appears as ‘weapons/explosives'
• Offences against justice procedures, government security and government operations appears as 'offences against justice'

The NOI (published in National Offence Index) is a tool which provides an ordinal ranking of offence categories in ANZSOC according to perceived seriousness in order to determine a principal offence. The purpose of the NOI is to enable the representation of an offender by a single offence in instances where multiple offences occur within the same incident or where offenders are proceeded against by police on more than one occasion in the reference period.

A revised NOI was released in 2018 to assign rankings to supplementary offence codes that were previously unranked in the 2009 version. The principal offence information presented for the 2017–18 reference period onwards is based on the 2018 version of the NOI with a minor modification for fare evasion offences.

The principal offence information presented in this issue for the reference periods 2008–09 to 2016–17 is based on the 2009 version of the NOI with a minor modification to add a ranking for ANZSOC group ‘0800 theft and related offences, not further defined’ to improve principal offence data for the Northern Territory. Due to this modification there was minimal impact on the data from the change to the 2018 version.

The method of proceeding describes the type of legal action (court or non-court) initiated by police against a person as a result of an investigation of an offence(s). The type of legal action may change as further investigation is undertaken by police. Not all changes made during the reference period may be reflected in this collection. The method of proceeding classification is a hierarchical classification. For details of the classification hierarchy refer to method of proceeding in the glossary.