Higher Courts Sentencing Snapshots Released
The Sentencing Advisory Council has released sixteen new Sentencing Snapshots in its series examining offences heard in the higher courts of Victoria from July 2003 to June 2008.
The latest Snapshots analyse sentencing trends for a number of sex offences, homicide offences and property offences.
This set of Snapshots is the only set that the Council has released this financial year for the higher courts. All the Snapshots have previously been released; this update provides an additional two years of data to the time series. The Snapshots include statistics on sentencing outcomes as well as the age and gender of people sentenced for each of the sixteen offences.
The data in these Snapshots indicate that:
- there was an increase in the number of people sentenced for indecent act with a child under 16 (from 25 in 2003-04 to 35 in 2007-08);
- there was an increase in the number of people sentenced for rape (from 37 in 2003-04 to 54 in 2007-08);
- cases of murder and manslaughter were less likely to involve multiple offences than sexual offence cases (particularly those involving children) and property offence cases; and
- there was an increase in the proportion of people sentenced to imprisonment from 2006-07 to 2007-08 for obtaining a financial advantage by deception and for obtaining property by deception.