ABOUT THIS PUBLICATION
This release presents results from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) national Crime Victimisation Survey, conducted from July 2012 to June 2013 as part of the ABS Multipurpose Household Survey (MPHS). The survey collected data about people’s experiences of crime victimisation for a selected range of personal and household crimes. The survey also collected data about whether victims reported these incidents to police, characteristics of victims and characteristics of the most recent incident they experienced.
This is the fifth Crime Victimisation Survey conducted by the ABS since it was redesigned in 2008–09. This publication also includes some data from the 2008–09, 2009–10, 2010–11 and 2011-12 surveys (refer to the 'Time series and multiple victimisation' Data Cube). Comparisons between 2008-09 and 2012-13 and between 2011-12 and 2012-13 are discussed in the text where there was a statistically significant difference in the estimate between the two reference periods.
All tables are available in Excel spreadsheet format from the Downloads tab. Information on the concepts and methods used in the survey, reliability of the results, definitions and interpretation are included in the Explanatory Notes, Technical Note and Glossary. Differences between data items highlighted in the publication text are statistically significant (refer to the Significance Testing section of the Technical Note).
CHANGES IN THIS ISSUE
The structure of the commentary and the tables has changed from previous years to better suit the electronic publication format. The new format is designed to assist readers to more easily navigate the publication and locate information on specific areas of interest.
The 'Summary' and 'Time series and multiple victimisation' data cubes contain both national and state and territory estimates. State and territory specific data cubes have been replaced by state and territory spotlights in the publication text. These present a summary of key estimates and comparisons of change from previous survey periods where there is a statistically significant difference. Other changes to data presented in the tables have been made in order to:
Previous issues of this publication included an estimate of the total number of incidents for each selected crime type. Analysis of data quality from the 2008-09 to the 2011-12 Crime Victimisation Surveys found that this data, when used as an aggregate-level estimate (i.e. total number of incidents), is subject to a large degree of annual variability due to sample and non-sample error, which limits its usefulness as an indicator of change in incidence from year to year. The 2012-13 publication presents data relating to the number of incidents of each offence type experienced by respondents as an indicator o
f multiple victimisation. When presented in this way as a categorical person characteristic, repeat victimisation can assist users to understand how people's experiences of particular types of crime differ.
There has been no change to the questionnaire.
COMPARISONS WITH OTHER ABS CRIME SOURCES
The ABS publishes data about crime victimisation
from a range of sources with differing measurement methodologies; this can produce different estimates. As such, caution should be exercised when making comparisons with other sources. For more information, see the Data Comparability section in the
Explanatory Notes. Information about other sources of ABS crime and justice statistics is available from the Crime and Justice
Topics @ a Glance web page.
ROUNDING
As estimates have been rounded, discrepancies may occur between the sum of component items and the published total. Published percentages are calculated prior to rounding and therefore some discrepancy may occur between these percentages and those that could be calculated from the rounded figures.
INQUIRIES
For further information about these and related statistics, contact the
National Information and Referral Service.
Quality Declaration 
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