Skip to start of content

Home → Publications → Reports → Australian crime : facts and figures → 2002 → Alleged offenders

Australian Crime: Facts and Figures 2002

Corrections

The definition of adult varies between jurisdictions and over time. In 2000, 'adult' referred to persons aged 18 years and over in all states and territories except Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania. In this section, 'adult' refers to persons aged 17 years and over.

Persons under corrective services

There is a variety of sentencing options available to the courts. Corrective service authorities manage those offenders sentenced to either imprisonment, community corrections or periodic detention.

Prisons

A national census of adult prisoners is taken on 30 June each year. The Australian Institute of Criminology began this collection in 1982, and conducted the censuses annually until 1993. This role was then taken over by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 1994. The most recent statistics available are from the 2001 prison census.

Prisoners in 2001

A total of 22,458 persons were in custody in Australian prisons on the night of 30 June 2001, an increase of 4% on the number recorded in 2000. This corresponds to a rate of 150 per 100,000 adult persons. Of these, 18,123 were sentenced prisoners and 4,335 were remandees.

Most serious offence

Offenders can be sentenced to a prison term for one or a number of offences. The offence for which a prisoner is categorised as being incarcerated is the offence that is deemed most serious.

Trends in prison populations

It should be noted that the prisoner counts can include both sentenced prisoners and those on remand (unsentenced).

Gender

Figure 69 depicts the imprisonment rate of male and female persons (line graph and left axis) and the ratio of male rates to female rates (bar graph and right axis), from 1983 to 2001.

Indigenous status

Figure 70 depicts the imprisonment rate of Indigenous and non-Indigenous persons (line graph and left axis) and the ratio of Indigenous rates to non-Indigenous rates (bar graph and right axis). These data include both sentenced prisoners and remandees.

Note: Rate calculations for Indigenous and non-Indigenous adult prisoners are based on the 'high-series' of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population projections. This accounts for the effects of increased propensity to identify as Indigenous between the 1991 and 1996 censuses.

Most serious offence

Violent prisoners are those convicted of homicide, assault, sex offences and robbery. Prisoners convicted of property offences include those charged with break and enter and with other theft (including motor vehicle theft).

Figure 71 depicts the percentage of sentenced prisoners convicted of violent offences (line graph and left axis) and the ratio of the rate of imprisonment for violent offences to the imprisonment rate for property offences (bar graph and right axis).

Community corrections

Community corrections comprise a variety of non-custodial programs, which vary in the extent and nature of supervision, the conditions of the order, and the restrictions on the person's freedom of movement in the community. They generally provide either a non-custodial sentencing alternative or a post-custodial mechanism for reintegrating prisoners into the community under continued supervision.

  • In Australia during 2000-2001, there were 59,733 offenders per day, on average, serving community correction orders (an increase of 1% on the number recorded in 1999-2000).
  • This corresponds to a rate of 407 per 100,000 adults.
  • Males accounted for about 81% of the community corrections population in 2000-2001.

Community corrections orders are classified into three main categories:

  • restricted movement orders (for example, home detention);
  • reparation orders (for example, fine options, community service); and
  • supervision (compliance) orders (for example, parole, bail, sentenced probation).

Indigenous status

  • On average, 44,954 non-Indigenous offenders and 7,287 Indigenous offenders were serving community corrections orders in 2000-2001 (excluding Victoria).

Juvenile corrective institutions

The Australian Institute of Criminology has maintained a collection on the number of persons detained in juvenile corrective institutions since 1981. The census consists of a count of the number of persons detained in institutions on the last day of each quarter each year. Note that the longterm trend data shown in Figure 75 is based on the census conducted on 30 June of each year.

Trends in juvenile corrective institution population

Given the differences among jurisdictions regarding the definition of a juvenile, statistics are shown for people aged between 10 and 17 years. Figure 75 depicts the imprisonment rate of male and female juveniles (line graph and left axis) and the ratio of male incarceration rates to female rates (bar graph and right axis), from 1981 to 2001.

Indigenous status

Data on incarcerated juveniles by Indigenous status has been made available since 1993. Figure 76 depicts the incarceration rate of Indigenous and non-Indigenous persons (line graph and left axis) in juvenile corrective institutions, and the ratio of Indigenous rates to non-Indigenous rates (bar graph and right axis).