Recorded Crime - Victims methodology

Recorded Crime – Victims presents statistics relating to victims of crime for a selected range of offences as recorded by police. These offences may have been reported by a victim, witness or other person, or they may have been detected by police. These statistics are not designed to provide a total count of unique victims, nor the total number of individual offences that came to the attention of police.

Statistics in this publication are:

• created from data held in administrative systems which is collected and maintained by police agencies within each state and territory
• collected by the ABS and compiled according to the National Crime Recording Standard in order to maximise consistency between states and territories
• produced annually on a calendar year basis

The scope of this collection includes victims of offences classified to selected divisions and/or subdivisions of the Australian and New Zealand Standard Offence Classification (ANZSOC). A victim can be a person, premises, organisation, or motor vehicle depending on the type of offence.

Selected offence categories are:

• homicide and related offences (including murder, attempted murder and manslaughter, but excluding driving causing death and conspiracy to murder) - ANZSOC division 01
• assault - ANZSOC subdivision 021
• sexual assault - ANZSOC subdivision 031
• abduction and kidnapping - ANZSOC subdivision 051
• robbery - ANZSOC subdivision 061
• blackmail and extortion - ANZSOC subdivision 062
• unlawful entry with intent/burglary, break and enter - ANZSOC division 07
• motor vehicle theft - ANZSOC groups 0811 and 0812
• other theft - ANZSOC groups 0813, 0821, 0823, 0829 and 0841

Statistics in this publication relate to both completed and attempted offences, i.e. those where the intent is not fulfilled. Attempts to commit an offence are classified to the same ANZSOC divisions and/or subdivisions as completed offences, except for:

• murder, where murder and attempted murder are distinguished as separate offence categories
• attempted motor vehicle thefts due to difficulties in distinguishing these offences from criminal damage

The scope excludes the following:

• conspiracy offences
• threats to commit an offence (an exception to this exclusion is assault where there is an apprehension that the direct threat of force, injury, or violence could be enacted, which is in-scope of the collection. This also applies to offences like robbery, kidnapping/abduction and blackmail/extortion where an element of threat is implicit in the nature of the crime)
• aid, abet and accessory offences
• deprivation of liberty offences
• Where an outcome of investigation determines ‘no crime’ was committed i.e. the offence was reported to police but later deemed to be unfounded, false, or baseless; counts are excluded from the data.
• Victims of crime as recorded by the Australian Federal Police (AFP). As such, victims of crime in Australia’s ‘other territories’ such as Christmas Island, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Jervis Bay Territory are out of scope as these territories are under AFP jurisdiction.

Data is compiled based on the date an offence is reported to police and recorded within the reference period. This corresponds to either the date the offence was reported to police by a member of the public or when it was detected by police and was recorded on police systems. The report date may not necessarily be the date when the offence occurred. This is particularly the case for sexual assault, where in some instances there may be a large time difference between when the offence occurred and the report/detection date.

The definition of victim varies according to the offence category, and can be a person, premises, organisation, or motor vehicle.

• For murder, attempted murder, manslaughter, assault, sexual assault and kidnapping/abduction, the victim is an individual person.
• For robbery, the victim may be either an individual person or an organisation. Where the robbery involves an organisation or business, the element of property ownership is the key to determining the number and type of robbery victims. If the robbery only involves property belonging to an organisation, then one victim (i.e. the organisation) is counted regardless of the number of employees from which the property is taken. However, if robbery of an organisation also involves personal property in an employee's custody, then both the organisation and employee(s) are counted as victims.
• For blackmail/extortion, the victim may be either an individual person or an organisation.
• For unlawful entry with intent, the victim is the place/premise which is defined as a single connected property that is owned, rented, or occupied by the same person or group of people.
• For motor vehicle theft, the victim is the motor vehicle.
• For other theft, the victim is either an individual person or an organisation.

The Recorded Crime – Victims collection does not enumerate unique persons or organisations. If a person:

• is a victim of one offence, they will be counted once in this publication
• is a victim of the same offence multiple times in the same incident, the victim is counted once
• is a victim of the same offence multiple times in different incidents throughout the year, the victim is counted once for each incident
• is a victim of multiple offences in the same incident that fall within the same offence category, the victim is counted once, and the lowest ANZSOC code recorded within that offence category is recorded as the offence
• is a victim of multiple offences that fall in different offence categories, the victim is counted once in each of the different categories, meaning one victim can be presented multiple times under different offence categories

The following diagram illustrates the counting rules for the Recorded Crime – Victims collection. It demonstrates how one unique person who has been a victim of five offences is counted three times, due to the types of offences committed.

Other examples of how different victim scenarios are counted are explained below:

• If a victim is assaulted by several offenders or a victim is repeatedly assaulted by the same offender, but reports the victimisation to police as part of the same incident, the victim would be counted once for assault.
• On the other hand, if a victim reports these offences to police as separate incidents, then a count is made for each separate report.
• If a bank with several customers present is robbed, one robbery is counted, with the victim being the bank. If personal property is also taken from two customers, there would be three victims: the bank and the two customers.
• One victim is counted for each motor vehicle stolen. For example, if five cars are stolen from a car yard, this is counted as five motor vehicle thefts.

For the offence of unlawful entry with intent (UEWI) the following applies:

• One victim is counted for each place/premises unlawfully entered, which can consist of either a single structure (e.g. house), part of a single structure (e.g. flat), or multiple structures (e.g. farmstead with house, barns and sheds). The same property containing the same structure can be counted differently depending on the occupancy arrangements at the time.
• For multiple structures on the same property with the same occupants, one victim is counted regardless of the number of separate structures unlawfully entered. This would apply to a house with attached or unattached garage and a backyard shed located on the one property; and warehouses occupied by a sole organisation located on the same property.
• For multiple structures on the same property, but occupied by more than one household or organisation, one victim is counted for each separate household or organisation. Where a business premises has an attached residence that is occupied by the same person, the registered business is considered to be a separate victim.
• In the case of UEWI to individual areas in a building that is rented, leased, or occupied separately, one victim is counted for each separate tenant/owner. For example, in a block of 10 flats leased by 10 different tenants where three flats are unlawfully entered, there would be a count of three UEWI. If unlawful entry to the building itself is recorded, an additional offence of UEWI to that building is counted. This instance would apply to apartments in one building, offices of several commercial firms in one business building, shops in a shopping complex, hotel rooms and lodging houses.

Two victim age data items are presented in this publication:

• age at report which is the age of the victim at the date the incident became known to police
• age at incident which is the age of the victim at the start date of the incident

For example, if a victim was sexually assaulted at age 14 years but did not report the offence to police until they were 18 years of age, their age at report in this publication would be 18 years and their age at incident would be 14 years.

Age at report data is published for all person offences. Age at incident data is published for sexual assault, as this offence has a higher proportion of incidents reported to police more than a year after the incident start date.

Victimisation rates have been revised to incorporate updated data from Estimates and Projections, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, 2006 to 2031

Statistics produced based on date reported may be affected over time by lags in completing and/or processing some crime reports. Where offences reported in the reference year are not processed for inclusion in the national statistics until the following year, revised data is included in subsequent publications and noted accordingly. In this issue, 2021 data has been revised in Tasmania to address this lag in reporting.

Due to coding changes in New South Wales sexual assault offence classifications, some victims included in the 2021 data were subsequently found to be out of scope for the Recorded Crime -Victims collection. New South Wales data for 2021 has therefore been revised this cycle to address this issue.

The Census and Statistics Act 1905 provides the authority for the ABS to collect statistical information, and requires that statistical output is not 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. 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 for the majority of this publication.

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.

Victimisation rates are expressed as victims 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 comparison of the extent and type of victimisation across the individual states and territories, as well as a comparison over time.

Victimisation rates are calculated using the ERP as at the midpoint of the reference period (i.e. 30 June 2022 for the 2022 reference period).

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

Victimisation rates for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander persons are calculated using an estimated population for the years 2010 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.

Care should be exercised in interpreting rates based on small numbers of victims.

National statistics are compiled in order to maximise comparability across states and territories. This collection has been designed to facilitate comparisons of states and territories 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, administrative systems and social, cultural or economic factors.

There are currently differing interpretations of coding for this data item across the states and territories which impact on the comparability of the data for the categories ‘investigation not finalised’ and 'investigation finalised – no offender proceeded against’. Users are advised to use caution when comparing this data item across jurisdictions.

The relationship of offender to victim information is initially recorded as the relationship as perceived by the victim at the time of the offence, with some jurisdictions updating this data item as the investigation progresses.

Relationship of offender to victim data for Western Australia is not of sufficient quality for national reporting.

There are some inconsistencies in relationship of offender to victim data across jurisdictions:

• New South Wales is unable to provide relationship data for robbery offences.
• Victoria and Tasmania record the relationship of the victim to offender rather than the offender to the victim, and data is subsequently re-coded to meet the requirements of the Recorded Crime – Victims relationship classification.

There are some inconsistencies in the coding of current and former boyfriends and girlfriends across the jurisdictions, which should be considered when making comparisons. This impacts on the data presented in publication tables as per the following:

• Tables containing the categories of ‘family member’ and ‘non-family member’:
  • New South Wales data for family member may be overstated and data for non-family member understated as ex-boyfriend and ex-girlfriend are included in 'boyfriend/girlfriend'.
  • Northern Territory data for family member may be understated and data for non-family member overstated as some boyfriends/girlfriends may be included in 'other non-family member n.e.c.'
• Tables containing the category ‘intimate partner’:
  • Queensland data for the category may be understated as some ex-boyfriends/girlfriends may be included in 'other non-family member n.e.c.'
  • Northern Territory data for the category may be understated as some boyfriends/girlfriends may be included in 'other non-family member n.e.c.'

The Family and Domestic Violence (FDV) related data presented in this release has been derived using two variables: an FDV flag and relationship of offender to victim (ROV). Where available, these variables are used to quality assure and further refine FDV related data across the states and territories.

The FDV flag is one of a number of information sources used by police to determine whether an offence was FDV related, and procedures for the use of the flag may vary across the jurisdictions as a result of legislative differences.

Police officers record the Family and Domestic Violence (FDV) flag when they have determined an offence or incident to be FDV related, as defined by the relevant state or territory legislation under which they operate. This differs across the states and territories:

• The FDV flag is recorded at the incident level in Victoria, Queensland, the Northern Territory, and the Australian Capital Territory. This may result in a small number of victims in these jurisdictions being flagged as FDV-related which do not meet the definition of a specified FDV relationship. 
• The FDV flag is recorded at the victim level in New South Wales, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania. This means that the flag is applied separately to each victim record and only selected offences which occurred within an FDV relationship, as specified in state legislation, are flagged.

Prior to 2021, the FDV flag data provided for New South Wales was recorded at the incident level. Users are advised to use caution when comparing to data from earlier in the time series.

For the purposes of improving data quality, known relationship information (ROV) was drawn upon to identify victims who had experienced victimisation within a specified family relationship but were not flagged as FDV related by police. These victims were re-classified as being FDV related so that they were included in the FDV related data presented in this release.

The ROV information provided for this collection is not detailed enough to separately identify those who experienced victimisation within a ‘carer’ and/or ‘kinship’ relationship as they are grouped with other relationships in the ‘other non-family member’ ROV category. This meant that although they aligned with the definition of a family and domestic relationship, they could not be checked to ensure the FDV flag had been applied correctly. Consequently, FDV related data on these victims was only included in the data where flagged as FDV related by police.

This release may include data that was flagged by police as FDV related but may not directly align with the specified relationship categories. For example, this may occur where no relationship information was provided to, or recorded by, police at the time of report.

Where the appropriate level of detail for ROV was available, offences flagged as FDV related but which occurred against a stranger were removed from the data.

Users should note that the comparability of the FDV flag and ROV data used to derive these counts are influenced by variances in availability, legislation, business rules, and differences in the crime recording systems across the states and territories. Refer to the data comparability section for available information.

The use of the FDV flag as a measure of victims of FDV related offences varies across the states and territories as follows:

• Western Australian FDV data is based on the FDV flag and limited ROV information from 2016 onward. Prior to 2016, data was based solely on the FDV flag as recorded by police, and therefore may exclude victims of selected offences which occurred within a specified family or domestic relationship where these had not been flagged by police. As such, users are advised not to make direct comparisons across years.
• Tasmanian information about victims of FDV related offences for 2014 to 2016 were based solely on the ROV data as recorded by police. From 2017, Tasmania Police have provided an FDV flag for the first time, however there was minimal impact on the data as the state specific legislation, under which the police flag is applied, only extends to include intimate partners in Tasmania.

Indigenous status is based on self-identification by the individual who comes into contact with police. The quality of this data is dependent on police asking individuals to self-identify and responses being recorded on police systems. Where individuals are not able to provide an answer for themselves, jurisdictions may accept a response where a next of kin/guardian provides the information. Where neither occurs, the victim is recorded with an Indigenous status of ‘not stated’.

This publication presents Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander data for a selected range of personal offences for New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and the Northern Territory. Based on an ABS data quality assessment, Indigenous status data for other jurisdictions is not of sufficient quality for national reporting within the Recorded Crime – Victims collection.

Due to variation in the quality of New South Wales data over time, caution is recommended when interpreting data about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander victim victims. A change in recording practices has resulted in improvements to the quality of the Indigenous status data item for 2022. However, due to this change, this data cannot be compared with previous reference periods. Further information is available in the New South Wales section.

Recorded Crime – Victims data was first published in 1993 and has since been released annually. 

A number of factors influence data comparability over time and need to be considered when looking at the trends in recorded crime. These can include changes in:

• standards, classifications or counting rules developed nationally
• new technologies or police business practices and resources
• legislation

Data has been compiled to produce tables containing statistics on victims of crime by selected offences as recorded by police from 1993 to 2022 (where available). This data is intended to support analysis of the whole time series available, however, there are a number of changes to the data over time which have been highlighted in these notes.

Some offence data was not available for 1993 and 1994 as a staged approach was used to set up the original data collection. Data was collected from 1995 for:

• assault
• further detail for unlawful entry with intent with subcategories of ‘property – stolen’ and ‘property – other’
• other theft

Four classifications have been used to categorise offence data over time:

• 1993-1998: Australian National Classification of Offences 1985
• 1999-2008: Australian Standard Offence Classification 1997
• 2009: Australian Standard Offence Classification (Second edition) 2008
• 2010-2022: Australian and New Zealand Standard Offence Classification 2011

Changes to the offence classifications generally had minimal impact on the offence data comparability. Some jurisdictions also used the opportunity of implementing updated coding classifications to review the offence coding rather than just transferring to the new classification, resulting in changes that may have impacted on comparability to earlier data.

A set of definitions and counting rules for crimes recorded by police were implemented from the start of the recorded crime data collection. 

A project was undertaken to investigate if there were underlying differences between state and territory data with results released in June 2005. The key findings of the project were:

• Some jurisdictions almost always recorded a reported criminal incident on their crime recording system, whereas other jurisdictions applied a form of threshold test prior to a record being made. Those threshold tests varied across jurisdictions and were not guided by national standards.
• Evidence suggested that variation in the decision to record a crime was significant for assault and sexual assault. Variation in the recording of property related offences did not appear to be as significant.
• Once a crime has been recorded in the system, there was no evidence to suggest that processes within any state or territory had a significant impact on differences in the recorded statistics.

From this project a National Crime Recording Standard (NCRS) was introduced to address the lack of a uniform standard in the initial police recording processes. Given that law enforcement is administered separately by each of the state and territory police agencies in Australia, the date of implementing this standard varied but mainly occurred between 2007 and 2009. 

One of the key changes to the data as a result of the implementation of the NCRS was the removal of data classified as ‘no crime’ from 2009 onwards. The removal of this category did not impact the data for Queensland or the Northern Territory. Queensland data was not impacted as that outcome was not included in prior years. Due to system issues, data for the Northern Territory continues to include this outcome. Analysis of the national data found that the difference between the published change and the actual change was small for most offence types, with nearly all movements in the same direction and of similar magnitude. Differences were more marked for some individual states and territories.

The first year of data available after the full implementation of the NCRS was 2010. However, the interpretation and implementation of the recording rule for assault incidents varied from the standard for Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania. Due to this variation assault data was not published for those jurisdictions for most years and subsequently national data was also not available. This issue was resolved for Tasmania with data available from 2014 and then for Queensland with data available from 2022. 

The recording and reporting rule differences between jurisdictions prior to the introduction of the NCRS, as well as the move to the NCRS and ongoing differences noted, should be considered when analysing the data over the extended time series.

The following notes highlight extended time series specific information for data by offence type.

Assault

Data for assault was introduced in 1995.

Data prior to 2010 was not recorded consistently across the states and territories for assault offences. This was partially resolved from 2010 onwards with the implementation of the National Crime Recording Standard.

Assault data for the Australian Capital Territory in 1995 was not suitable for publication so the time series commenced in 1996.

Sexual assault

Data prior to 2010 was not recorded consistently across the states and territories for sexual assault offences. This was resolved from 2010 onwards with the implementation of the National Crime Recording Standard.

Unlawful entry with intent

Further detail for unlawful entry with intent was introduced in 1995 with the added subcategories of ‘property – stolen’ and ‘property – other’.

Unlawful entry with intent subcategories are not available in 2000 for Queensland and South Australia, subsequently national data is also not available.

Other theft

Data for other theft was introduced in 1995.

Impact of COVID-19 on data

Australia’s federal, state and territory governments put restrictions in place to slow the spread of Coronavirus (COVID-19) from March 2020.

These measures, as well as other COVID-19 related changes, impacted the level of crime recorded by state and territory police in 2020 and 2021. This should be considered when interpreting the Recorded Crime – Victims data.

Data on blackmail/extortion victims in New South Wales were undercounted prior to 2022. Some victims of this offence type were coded to ‘fraud’ and subsequently out of scope for the Recorded Crime – Victims collection prior to 2022.

It became mandatory from January 2022 for New South Wales Police to ask all victims of crime, persons of interest, persons in custody, and people where police powers are used, whether they identify as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander and for their response to be recorded in the police system. As a result, there was a large decrease in the proportion of victims with an unknown Indigenous status. Users are advised not to compare 2022 data about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander victims to earlier reference periods due to this recording change.

Prior to this change, the proportion of victims with an unknown Indigenous status in New South Wales had been increasing over multiple reference periods. Care should be taken when comparing data about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander victims across reference periods.

From 2021, FDV flag data provided for New South Wales was recorded at the victim level. Data provided prior to this reference period was recorded at the incident level. Users are advised to use caution when comparing to data from earlier in the time series.

There was a decrease in the number of sexual assault victims in 2021 with unknown values for incident location and relationship of offender to victim in New South Wales. This contributed to increases in other categories for these data items. Users are advised to use caution when comparing these data items across the time series, as some categories may be undercounted prior to this change in data quality.

Outcome of investigation data for the offence category of other theft are unavailable for the years 2010–2013 due to coding issues for this data item. Consequently, national data has been suppressed.

Counts of kidnapping/abduction may be slightly inflated. 'Deprivation of liberty' (which is out of scope for this collection) is not separately identifiable on the NSW Police recording system; therefore, counts of this offence type are also included in the kidnapping/abduction offence category.

Additional codes were added to the Victoria Police Law Enforcement Assistance Program (LEAP) computer system in July 2015 to support finer disaggregation of relationship type. Prior to this system update, the relationship type of parent and child were grouped together in the same code when recorded in LEAP and were then disaggregated into the separate categories by Victoria Police when the data was provided to the ABS. Caution should be used when comparing relationship data within these categories prior to 2015.

During the 2014 collection cycle, it was discovered that the national counting rules had not been applied correctly to Victorian data in previous reference years, resulting in an overstatement of the number of victims for most offence types. The statistical impact of this error was found to be negligible for most offence types, with the exception of sexual assault and motor vehicle theft. Consequently, data was revised for 2013 and users are advised that published data from 2010–2012 are not directly comparable with data published for 2013 onwards.

Property taken in association with unlawful entry with intent may not always be identified due to limitations in recording options in the Victoria Police LEAP computer system. Therefore, caution should be used when assessing the sub components of this offence. The total counts for this offence are correct, however further disaggregation results in an undercount for ‘unlawful entry with intent – involving the taking of property' and an over count of ‘unlawful entry with intent – other'.

For incidents of assault, Victoria differs from other jurisdictions in the interpretation and implementation of the national recording rules. Some element of an investigation will be undertaken before deciding whether to record an incident on their crime recording system. A record of the incident may be taken on other systems however the incident will not be recorded on the police recording system until it is determined that a crime has been committed. As a result of the comparability issues arising from this difference in interpretation and implementation of the national recording rules, a decision has been made not to make available assault data for Victoria.

Assault data is not published for Queensland for the years 2010–2021, as data for these years do not follow the recording practices as set out by the NCRS. Prior to July 2021, in Queensland where an FDV incident occured which involved an alleged assault the following procedures were generally followed:

• If there was an existing violence order, a breach of that order was recorded for the offender but the associated assault may not have been recorded.
• 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.

A change in recording practices came into effect from 1 July 2021 and police officers must now record all substantive criminal offences associated with domestic and family violence investigations within the crime recording system.

The 2022 reference period is the first full year of Queensland assault data after the recording change. Investigations regarding the comparability of the relationship of offender to victim data item and the FDV related data for Queensland assault are ongoing. Subsequently, FDV and relationship of offender to victim data for Queensland assault is not available in this publication.

Weapon use coding was updated by Queensland Police for the 2020 collection cycle, with data previously mapped to ‘other weapon, not further defined’ now correctly coded to ‘unknown weapon’. Users are advised to exercise caution when making comparisons to data before 2020 as ‘weapon used’ was overstated.

A new crime recording system was implemented by South Australia Police in November 2018. This system has different data entry and extraction procedures than the previous system, impacting on data from 2019 onwards. Users are advised to exercise caution when making comparisons, particularly for outcome of investigation, location, weapon use and/or relationship of offender to victim data, prior to 2019.

Relationship of offender to victim (ROV) coding was updated by South Australia Police for the 2020 collection cycle, with relevant data previously mapped to ROV ‘family member not further defined’ now correctly coded to ‘parent’ following an improvement in the identification of these relationship types. Users are advised to exercise caution when making comparisons to data before 2020 as ‘parent’ was understated.

South Australia does not record an assault for an unknown victim but may record another offence such as theft (when evidence suggests an assault or another offence has taken place) if they cannot locate a victim or their representative.

South Australia Police record a single victim in instances where multiple vehicles belonging to the same owner are stolen in a single incident. Victims of motor vehicle theft may therefore be understated. However, impact to victim counts is considered minimal.

The legal age of consent to sex for South Australia and Tasmania is 17 years of age. The legal age of consent in all other states and territories is 16 years.

Unlawful entry with intent

Users are advised to exercise caution when comparing UEWI subcategories ‘Involving the taking of property’ and ‘Other’ for the 2022 data to earlier reference periods.  The offence coding for these subcategories was updated by Western Australia Police for the 2022 collection cycle with offences moved between the two subcategories relative to previous reference periods. The UEWI category was not affected and can be compared to earlier reference periods.

Sexual assault

Data on sexual assault victims in Western Australia may be undercounted prior to 2017. Changes made to recording and reporting practices were implemented for the 2017 collection onwards which may have caused an increase in sexual assault victims counts. This should be considered when comparing the 2017 data onwards to the earlier reference periods.

Location

Users are advised to use caution when comparing location data across the time series due to coding changes implemented by Western Australia Police in 2017 and 2021.

 In 2017, coding changes impacted on the location data for ‘other theft’ with:

• An increase in the number of other theft victims coded to ‘service station’. These victims had previously been coded to ‘retail n.e.c’. This location grouping detail was not published as its own category but was included in the ‘retail’ category.
• An increase in the number of other theft victims coded to ‘outbuilding/residential land’. These victims had previously been coded to ‘dwelling – private’ or ‘dwelling – non-private’.

The coding for location data was further updated during the 2021 collection cycle with:

• An increase in victims coded to ‘other’ location types. These victims had previously been coded to ‘unspecified’ location which was not published as its own category but was included in the total victims counts.
• A decrease in victims coded to ‘outbuilding/residential land’. This is a reversal of the 2017 coding change and these victims will now generally be coded to ‘dwelling – private’ or ‘dwelling – non private’. The exception is for offences that involve motor vehicles in residential locations and the related victims for motor vehicle theft or other theft are coded to ‘outbuilding/residential land’.

Weapon use

The coding for weapon use was also updated by Western Australia Police in 2021. This change has resulted in an increase in victims coded to other weapons categories. These victims had previously been coded to ‘weapons n.f.d.’. This weapon use group was not published as its own category but was included in the ‘weapons used’ category. Care should be taken when comparing data published prior to the coding changes.

Assault data is not published for Tasmania for the years 2010–2013, as the data for these years were not verified as following recording practices set out by the National Crime Recording Standard (NCRS).

The legal age of consent to sex for South Australia and Tasmania is 17 years of age. The legal age of consent in all other states and territories is 16 years.

The Northern Territory case management system does not include a 'no crime' outcome of investigation code. As a result, Northern Territory data may include victim counts for those situations where police have determined after investigation that 'no crime' has occurred. This differs to all other states and territories where 'no crime' data has been excluded from the victim counts.