4500.0 - Crime and Justice News, July 2011 to June 2012  
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 26/07/2012   
   Page tools: Print Print Page Print all pages in this productPrint All  
Contents >> Crime and Justice News, July 2011 to June 2012 >> Expanded range of information now available about federal offences

EXPANDED RANGE OF INFORMATION AVAILABLE ABOUT FEDERAL OFFENCES

In 2012 the third release of the Federal Defendants (4515.0) collection was released, followed by the addition of information about Federal Offenders to the Prisoners in Australia (4517.0) publication.


FEDERAL DEFENDANTS, SELECTED STATES AND TERRITORIES, 2010-11

Released: 19th June 2012, cat. no. 4515.0

The Federal Defendants publication presents statistics about finalised defendants charged with federal offences that were dealt with by the Higher, Magistrates' and Children's criminal courts, for all states and territories, except the Tasmanian Higher Courts.

Figures in the latest release show that the number of federal offences finalised in the criminal courts fell 14% between 2009-10 and 2010-11. The number of defendants with at least one federal offence finalised in Australia’s Criminal Courts also fell between the two years, from 14,007 to 10, 828. However, the average number of federal offences per defendant increased from 3.5 in 2009-10 to 3.9 in 2010-11.

Across all Criminal Courts, migration and people smuggling was the federal offence group with the largest proportional increase. There were 488 of these offences finalised in the courts in 2010-11, compared to 220 in 2009-10.


Source: Federal Defendants, Selected States and Territories, 2010-11 (cat. no. 4515.0)

PRISONERS IN AUSTRALIA, 2011


Updated: 28th June 2012, cat. no. 4517.0

The Prisoners in Australia publication presents national statistics on prisoners who were in adult corrective services custody on 30 June 2011. The statistics are derived from information collected by the ABS from corrective services agencies in each state and territory. Statistics are provided on the number of people in correctional institutions (including people on remand), imprisonment rates, most serious offence and sentence length. A range of information is also presented on prisoner characteristics (age, sex, Indigenous status) and on type of prisoner (all prisoners, sentenced prisoners, and unsentenced prisoners (remandees).

Additional information has recently been released providing statistics about prisoners and parolees serving sentences for federal offences in New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania as at 30 June 2011. This additional information shows the proportion of females is higher for federal prisoners when compared with the total prisoner population, where females comprised 7% of prisoners. For federal prisoners, the proportion of females ranged from 50% in Tasmania to 14% in South Australia. For federal parolees, the proportion of females was highest (21%) in New South Wales and South Australia, and lowest (13%) in Queensland.

Across the states sentence length varied for federal prisoners. For New South Wales and Queensland the most common sentence length was 5 years to under 10 years, whereas for South Australia it was 1 year to under 2 years. For Tasmania sentence length was evenly spread between under 3 months and 1 year to under 2 years.

Source: Prisoners in Australia, 2011 (cat. no. 4517.0)





Previous PageNext Page