INTRODUCTION
OVERVIEW
This publication presents statistics about victims of selected offences that came to the attention of, and were recorded by police, between January 1 and December 31, 2016. The statistics presented within this publication have been derived from administrative systems which are maintained by state and territory police agencies. Data have been compiled according to the National Crime Recording Standard (NCRS).
This collection does not enumerate unique persons or organisations; the same victim may be counted more than once where they have been a victim of multiple offence types, or where victimisation has been reported on more than one occasion during the reference period. As such, users are advised to refrain from aggregating the number of victims across each offence type, as this cannot produce a ‘total number of victims’. It is only meaningful to interpret victim counts within an offence category.
The Explanatory Notes provide detailed information about the data sources, scope, counting rules and data comparability associated with this publication.
CHANGES IN THIS ISSUE
The 2016 Recorded Crime – Victims release includes revisions to the 2015 data for New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory. State and territory data cubes, as well as national data for the 2015 period, have been impacted to varying degrees by these revisions. Users are advised to refer to the latest version of the Recorded Crime – Victims publication when making comparisons across years.
From the 2014 release onwards a confidentiality technique called perturbation was applied to data for the Recorded Crime – Victims collection to minimise the risk of being able to identify individuals within aggregate statistics. Perturbation involves the small random adjustment of statistical output and is considered the most effective technique to protect identifiable statistics while maximising the amount of information that can be released. These adjustments have a negligible impact on the underlying pattern of the statistics for the majority of the publication. However, offences with low levels of prevalence are proportionally more affected by perturbation than high volume offences. As such, a decision was made for the 2015 release to apply an alternative confidentiality process to the data for victims of Homicide and related offences. Data for this offence were not perturbed and some data were suppressed to minimise the risk of identifying individuals in the aggregate statistics.
This confidentiality process has again been applied to victims data relating to Homicide and related offences for the 2016 release. It has also been extended to the other low prevalence offences of Kidnapping/abduction and Blackmail/extortion. For more information see paragraphs 51–55 of the Explanatory Notes.
SUMMARY OF CONTENTS
Victims of Crime, Australia presents national statistics about victims of a selected range of offences that came to the attention of state and territory police, including comparisons over time. Selected characteristics about the victim (including sex and age) or incident (including weapon use and location) are also presented, as well as the outcome of the police investigation at 30 days from the time of report. National data about victims of Assault and the Relationship of the offender to victim data are not available. See Explanatory Notes paragraphs 69–72 and 28 for details.
Victims of Crime, states and territories presents information about victims of a selected range of offences for selected jurisdictions. Statistics about the characteristics of the victim (including sex, age and relationship of offender to victim) or the incident (including weapon use and location) are also presented for selected states and territories.
Victims of Crime, Indigenous Status presents statistics relating to the self-identified Indigenous Status of victims in New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and the Northern Territory for a selected range of offences (refer to Explanatory Notes paragraphs 22–24). Statistics about the characteristics of the victim (including sex, age and relationship of offender to victim) or the incident (including weapon use and location) are also presented for selected states and territories.
Victims of Family and Domestic Violence (FDV)- related offences presents statistics about victims of selected offences where the relationship of offender to victim, as stored on police systems, falls within a specified family or domestic relationship, or where an FDV flag has been recorded, following a police investigation. National statistics are available for selected offences only.
For ease of reading, some terms have been abbreviated throughout this publication. The offence ‘Unlawful entry with intent/burglary, break and enter’ has been abbreviated to ‘Unlawful entry with intent’; and ‘Homicide and related offences’ (which includes Murder, Attempted murder and Manslaughter) are referred to as ‘Homicide’ throughout this publication.
INFORMATION ON ABS CRIME AND JUSTICE STATISTICS
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) produces two key data sources that can inform the community about crime victimisation. The first of these is a measure of crimes reported to and recorded by police in a calendar year (outlined in this publication). The second is an annual household survey collecting direct reports from members of households about their experiences of crime in the 12 months prior to interview, with results published in Crime Victimisation, Australia (cat. no. 4530.0). Neither of these sources alone can provide a complete measure of crime victimisation in the community, but together they provide a more comprehensive picture of victimisation. Both sources have a number of limitations of which users should be aware. Detailed information about the differences between these sources of data and the implications for data comparability is available in the information paper Measuring Victims of Crime: A Guide to Using Administrative and Survey Data, June 2011 (cat. no. 4500.0.55.001).
More information about the ABS activities in the field of crime and justice statistics are available on the ABS website. Details of other ABS publications relating to crime and justice statistics can be found on the Other Related Information tab.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The ABS acknowledges the valuable contribution of the Board of Management of the National Crime Statistics Unit (NCSU), the National Crime Statistics Advisory Group and the staff of the various agencies that provide the data that are presented within this publication.
INQUIRIES
For further information about these and related statistics, contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070. The ABS Privacy Policy outlines how the ABS will handle any personal information that you provide to us.
Print Page
Print All