NOTES
ABOUT THIS PUBLICATION
This publication presents nationally comparable statistics relating to the criminal jurisdiction of the Higher (Supreme and Intermediate), Magistrates' and Children's Courts across Australia for the period 1 July 2008 to 30 June 2009. Some time series data are also included where available. The statistics describe the characteristics of defendants, including information on the offences and sentences associated with those defendants.
Additional data are available in the Supplementary Data Cubes (cat. no. 4513.0) on the ABS website. A list of Supplementary Data Cubes is included in Appendix 1.
CHANGES IN THIS ISSUE
Offence data in this publication are based on the Australian Standard Offence Classification (ASOC), 2008 (Second edition) (cat. no. 1234.0) and the revised National Offence Index (NOI), 2009 (cat. no. 1234.0.55.001). Offence information in previous issues are based on the 1997 version of the ASOC and the original NOI.
ASOC08 was adopted to reflect changes that have occurred in criminal legislation since ASOC97 was released, as well as satisfying emerging user requirements for offence data. NOI09 reflects the revisions included in ASOC08. For further details see the Technical Note and Appendices 3 and 4.
Data about federal defendants are published for the first time.
DATA CONSISTENCY
The statistics are sourced from the national Criminal Courts collection conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), and have been compiled according to national standards in order to maximise consistency between the states and territories. The Explanatory Notes, Appendices and Glossary provide detailed information on the data sources, counting rules, terminology, classifications and other technical aspects associated with these statistics
ROUNDING
Discrepancies may occur between sums of the component items and totals across tables due to rounding and randomisation.
INFORMATION ON ABS CRIME AND JUSTICE
More information about ABS activities in the field of crime and justice statistics is available from the 'Crime and Justice' theme page on the ABS website <www.abs.gov.au>. Details of other ABS publications relating to crime and justice statistics can be found in the Explanatory Notes paragraph 109.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The ABS acknowledges the valuable contribution of the Board of Management, the National Criminal Courts Statistics Advisory Group, the Court Practitioners' Group and the staff of the various agencies that provide the statistics presented in this publication.
INQUIRIES
For further information about these and related statistics, contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070 or Jo Dover on Melbourne (03) 9615 7681.
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