4525.0 - The National Criminal Justice Statistical Framework, Jul 2001  
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 31/08/2001   
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Contents >> Chapter 2: Need for and benefits of a national statistical framework

2.1 INTRODUCTION

A key strategic objective of the ABS and its National Statistical Service is to promote and support good statistical and data management practices. This includes the development and use of standards within the statistical holdings of other government agencies in the interests of promoting a more unified body of national statistical information and avoiding duplication of effort in their administrative data collections. The development of the Framework arose from the need to develop comprehensive and integrated national criminal justice data. By bringing together data from multiple sources, the ABS is in a better position to facilitate answering the key questions of data users.


2.2 KEY ISSUES AND QUESTIONS IN CRIMINAL JUSTICE

The primary purpose of the Framework is to identify the key counting units and data variables in the CJS that will allow key issues in the field of criminal justice to be addressed. There are a number of important questions about criminal justice and the CJS that either cannot or have not been addressed by currently available data. The Framework lays the foundation for an integrated data infrastructure to facilitate addressing both the key issues in the field and the important, unanswered questions.

Key issues include:

  • An inability to distinguish characteristics of offenders (a lack of detailed offender information).
  • An inability to track offenders through the criminal justice system.
  • The lack of information of victim and offender ethnicity and Indigenous status.
  • The lack of information of drug, alcohol and firearm involvement in crime.
  • The lack of adequate data to examine recidivism (including the lack of a standard definition of a recidivist).
  • An inability to evaluate comprehensively programs to reduce recidivism and other intervention / prevention programs in order to determine accurately the types of strategies that are effective.
  • The lack of collection of data for research and evaluation requirements, rather than just for operational needs.
  • The existence of many systems to store data, but no integration of that data.
  • The lack of uniform standards in some parts of the crime and justice field.
  • The need for geo-coded data for regional comparisons at small local area level.
  • The lack of a substantial link between crime data and other data to help identify factors contributing to crime.

Better integrated data should also facilitate answering some of the key questions in the criminal justice field. Examples of such questions include:
  • What are the causes of crime in Australia?
  • How big is the crime problem?
  • Is crime getting better or worse over time?
  • Who is most at risk for becoming a victim or a multiple victim of crime?
  • Who is most at risk for becoming an offender?
  • Why are certain groups over-represented in the criminal justice system?
  • What is the role of alcohol and drugs in crime?
  • How does crime vary across small local areas?
  • How afraid are people of crime?
  • What is the relationship between fear of crime and actual levels of crime?
  • How much crime goes unreported? Why?
  • Is crime reduction achieved more effectively via increased enforcement or via a focus on prevention strategies?
  • Which programs are most effective for preventing crime? For decreasing recidivism? For diverting offenders out of the system?
  • What is the relative effectiveness of various criminal justice strategies?
  • How effective is the criminal justice system as a whole in reducing crime?
  • How does the public perceive the effectiveness and efficiency of various elements of the criminal justice system?
  • How satisfied is the public with the criminal justice system?
  • What is the flow-on effect of policy changes on the rest of the system?
  • What proportion of people who enter the criminal justice system end up spending time in prison?
  • How much recidivism is there?
  • Can effective measures of recidivism be developed?
  • How can data from multiple sources be understood and integrated?
  • How can we make sense of differences in crime statistics across jurisdictions?
  • How can different jurisdictions share data more effectively?
  • How are health and education and other social and economic factors linked to crime in Australia?

Further information about such issues and questions is provided in Appendix 2.


2.3 REQUIREMENTS FOR CRIMINAL JUSTICE DATA

The issues and questions discussed above define the areas in which the demand for and interest in criminal justice information is highest. The Framework attempts to address these areas in terms of the types of data it recommends for collection and standardisation. Requirements for data (and information) about criminal justice can be divided into two broad groups.

2.3.1 Data that support management of the criminal justice system

These data, and the information they can help produce, are of key concern to those responsible for managing or administering agencies within the criminal justice system as they assist in determining resource allocations, policy making, planning and evaluation. They are also of interest to the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) and the public to enable the assessment of the relative efficiency and effectiveness of the services provided by the CJS.

Two main factors impinge upon the actual availability of management-related data. The first is the extent to which the agency requires these data for legislative or procedural purposes. If the information is not required in order to carry out the operational functions of the agency, then it is unlikely that the data will be collected, even though the information may be important for strategic or management information purposes.

The second factor bearing on data availability relates to how the operational information systems of the agencies in any given State/Territory are established and managed. Where data transfer mechanisms exist it is more likely that data collected in earlier 'upstream' parts of the criminal justice system are available for 'downstream' agencies' use. In the absence of such mechanisms or protocols, it may be necessary for an agency to re-collect data that was already collected in an 'upstream' part of the system. There are several disadvantages with this practice: it is less efficient; it may impose an unnecessary burden on respondents; and it introduces the scope for data inconsistencies across the different information systems.

Key types of management information include:
  • the volume and nature of work entering the various sectors of the CJS (for example, number of offences, persons or incidents/cases);
  • the time required for this work to flow through a given sector.

Analysis of trends in volume and time requirements can assist in planning case management regimes or infrastructure requirements such as the number and location of police stations.

2.3.2 Data that support the development of social indicators for Australia

The focus of these statistics is to understand the populations that come into contact with the criminal justice system and the experiences they have. While agencies within the CJS will use these data, they are also of key concern to academics, criminologists, social researchers, public policy advisers, the media, and the public as they help increase understanding of the perpetrators, targets, causes and effects of crime and assist in designing and implementing crime prevention and treatment programs. They are also of interest in reflecting the well being of society in general and that of groups that are disadvantaged or have special needs (for example, older people, children, youth, families with children, single parents, people with disabilities, carers, recipients of various government benefits, long-term unemployed, low income earners, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, and people from non-English speaking backgrounds).

Key types of social indicator information include:

  • Information on the nature and extent of crime and how this is changing over time.
  • Demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of people.
  • Relationships between victims and offenders.
  • The social and economic effects of crime.
  • The impact of laws, policies, programs and sentencing practices on crime rates.
  • The relationship of social and economic conditions to crime.
  • Information on factors affecting crime rates, patterns in victimisation and offending, and pathways to crime.


2.4 BENEFITS OF A NATIONAL STATISTICAL FRAMEWORK

2.4.1 Objective 1: Integrating data across the criminal justice system

The way in which agencies such as police, courts and correctional services are established and structured varies among agencies, as does the data that they collect about their activities. Different agencies each have their own information systems with varying structures, capabilities and purposes. These have principally been designed as operational systems for assisting practitioners to carry out administrative functions. They tend to be based on different software applications and are tailored to meet a particular agency's administrative needs. At the same time, interrelationships exist between the different sectors of the criminal justice system, such that activities undertaken by one agency impact on the demand for services within a connected or related agency.

The Framework is not concerned with standardising the actual operational systems used by criminal justice agencies, but rather with standardising the way in which data are collected by and stored in these systems. The Framework is intended to be used as a 'map' for determining how criminal justice data should be organised and which data variables are key to ensuring that the most useful set of data is collected. Having an integrated system of criminal justice statistics with compatible information about the data flows through the entire system will not only avoid duplication of effort, thus creating cost efficiencies in the compilation of criminal justice statistics, but will also help avoid the confusion that arises when multiple sources of statistical information that should be measuring the same thing produce data that tell quite different stories.

Information about the flow-on effect of sector activities could therefore be an important tool for more effectively managing the criminal justice system, for more efficient use of public resources and for the development of a co-operative approach to specific programs in criminal justice, such as prevention, diversion and treatment programs. It could also assist in verifying crime statistics by enhancing methods for undertaking quality assurance of data.

Another significant benefit is that the methods used to collect, organise and store data can become more understandable to the practitioners responsible for this work. This is the result of having documented the metadata needed to understand the concepts, sources and collection methods underlying the data. In turn, this documentation will help to increase data accuracy and reliability so that, regardless of the source and/or dissemination media, there is consistency across outputs and between data and metadata.

2.4.2 Objective 2: Integrating data across geographical areas

In Australia, the development of criminal law is primarily a State/Territory responsibility. This has led to the existence of eight separate legal systems whose criminal laws vary in both scope and definition. In some instances, national standards such as the Australian Standard Offence Classification (ASOC) can be used to overcome these differences and produce information on broad categories of offences that are defined in the same way across jurisdictions. A key purpose of the Framework is to describe and further develop such national statistical standards.

Integration of criminal justice data across the States and Territories of Australia would allow more valid interstate comparisons to be made and national statistics to be derived. The profile of crime varies across geographical areas both at the macro level (among States and Territories in Australia) and at the micro level (for example, between different suburbs or even different streets within a suburb). These differences in crime can be linked with regional differences in social, demographic and economic conditions. Understanding the nature of these links is important because it can shed light on how to manage and prevent crime. Knowledge about crime prevention strategies that have proven effective in a particular geographical area, together with information about the associated social, economic and other conditions that enabled them to succeed, can then be generalised to other similar geographical areas elsewhere in Australia.

2.4.3 Objective 3: Establishing priorities for criminal justice data collections

The Framework places criminal justice data currently available within the context of the full scope of data requirements, thereby helping to determine where current data collections are adequate and where available data do not address information needs. In identifying these data gaps, the Framework will facilitate the establishment of priorities for future development of current data collections. This will help ensure that the National Statistical Service provided by the ABS remains relevant and useful to its clients.

2.4.4 Objective 4: Promoting data standards

Ultimately, the Framework is intended to promote the adoption of standardised methods of collecting, compiling and disseminating criminal justice statistics. Such standardisation will facilitate a progressive move toward consistent understanding and expression of data concepts and will also allow for better communication among key users of criminal justice data.


2.5 SUMMARY

By laying the foundations for better integration of criminal justice data, the Framework will facilitate addressing key issues and questions in the field. It will encourage increased comparability of data both within and between jurisdictions and will assist in establishing priorities for the future development of criminal justice data collections.



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