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People Sentenced in Victorian Courts - Higher Courts, Magistrates' Court and Children's Court

Description

The graphs, People sentenced in Victoria by court level 1999-00 to 2007-08 and Annual percentage change in people sentenced by court level 2000-01 to 2007-08, present the numbers and annual percentage change in people sentenced by court level from 1999-00 to 2007-08.

Commentary

From 2000-01 to 2007-08, the only financial year in which the number of people sentenced declined at all court levels was 2004-05.

Between 1999-00 to 2007-08, most people were sentenced in the Magistrates' Court (88%), followed by the Children's Court (10%) and the higher courts (2%).

From 2006-07 to 2007-08, the number of people sentenced increased at each court level, except the Children’s Court.

The changes were:
• 5% in the higher courts (up from 2,100 to 2,206)
• 9% in the Magistrates' Court (up from 80,066 to 88,077)
• 16% in the Children's Court (down from 11,214 to 9,437)

Explanatory notes

The higher courts include the Supreme Court and County Court.

The increase in the number of defendants sentenced in the Children's Court in 2006-07 was due to two main reasons, both relating to the increase in age jurisdiction of the Children's Court from young people aged from 10 to 16 years to those aged from 10 to 17, that occurred on 1 July 2005.

Firstly, a backlog of infringement matters from the Department of Infrastructure was processed in the Children's Court in 2006-07. The matters related to fare evasion and other public transport related offences among 17 year olds which, prior to the age increase, were processed in the adult PERIN (Penalty Enforcement by Registration of Infringement Notice) system. Secondly, the full impact of the age increase more generally was not felt until 2006-07.

While the number of defendants sentenced in the Children’s Court has decreased from 2006-07 to 2007-08, it has yet to return to the levels seen before the jurisdictional change.

It should also be noted that for the financial year 2007-08 it became possible to discriminate between discharged and dismissed cases which had a sentencing outcome and those that did not (for example, cases that were discharged following completion of an earlier undertaking). Prior to this a formula was used which may have overestimated the number of dismissed and discharged cases with a recorded sentencing outcome.

Higher courts data may be subject to minor revision.

Source

Courts Statistical Services, Department of Justice (Victoria). Unpublished data.

Data

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Author:	Sentencing Advisory Council
Place of Publication:	Melbourne
Publisher:	Sentencing Advisory Council
Date of Publication:	2008
Number of Pages:	1
Copyright:	State of Victoria, Sentencing Advisory Council, 2008.