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This paper complements Child Abuse and Neglect: Part 1 -­ Redefining the Issues (Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 146), published in February 2000.

The ageing of the population is as much a concern within the justice system as in general society. In 2006, Australia's prison population had a median age of 33, (ABS 2006). While younger than the national median (37 years), the prison population contains a large proportion of older prisoners (50 years and older; Grant 1999). The figure below shows the imprisonment rate (sentenced and remand) for older age groups from 1985 to 2006. Although imprisonment rates overall may be stablising (Crime facts info no. 147), they continue to increase for older groups.

Males are more likely to be victims of robbery in every age group and overall are three times more likely to be a robbery victim than females. The Australian Bureau of Statistics' (ABS) annual publication Recorded crime, victims, Australia presents statistics on incidents of victimisation for a selected range of offences recorded by police over the preceding year. Robbery includes armed and unarmed robbery and includes the use, or threatened use of force or violence.

The Australian Computer Emergency Response Team (AusCERT) presents its findings on trends in electronic attacks on Australian organisations in its annual Australian computer crime and security survey. In the latest survey, 389 organisations responded as to whether they had experienced one or more electronic attacks in the past 12 months. About one in five (22%) had experienced an electronic attack, down from more than one-third (35%) the year before and continuing a downward trend that began in 2004 (49%). Most of these (83%) were from external sources.

An increase in recorded sexual assault of young people was a major contributor to an overall rise in recorded sexual assault since the mid-1990s. As data are based on the date of reporting, which may be some time, even years, after the date of occurrence, it is not clear whether this increase relates to current or past events. In the period between 1996 and 2003, the incidence of recorded sexual assault for children aged 0-14 years accounted for around 40 percent of all recorded sexual assaults (Bricknell 2008).

The Australian Institute of Criminology has collected data on homicides in Australia since 1989. Homicide includes murder, manslaughter and infanticide, but excludes driving-related fatalities unless these occur in the course of a criminal event. Homicide is regarded as the most accurately recorded crime in Australia and is thus a reliable indicator of the most serious violent crime. The latest figures indicate that there were 288 incidents and 305 victims of homicide in Australia during 2003-04.