Web Links and Legislation
Data Sources
The statistics provided by the Council draw on a variety of sources including the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), the International Centre for Prison Studies, the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) and the Department of Justice. Their assistance is gratefully acknowledged.
Data availability and quality
The data on courts, prisons and community corrections in Victoria vary in terms of quality and length of collection. Due to these differences, the reference period of the analysis varies throughout the commentary, with some data being available over longer periods than others. The degree to which data are aggregated and the way the data are categorised also varies depending on the nature of historic data recording techniques. This impacts the ability to examine sentencing data with the same level of detail over different reference periods. To the greatest extent possible, the Council has attempted to align and reconcile these differences.
Reference Section
Australian Bureau of Statistics, Prisoners in Australia cat. 4517.0
Australian Bureau of Statistics, Corrective Services cat. 4512.0
Australian Institute of Criminology, Statistics on Juvenile Detention in Australia: 1981/2003, Technical and Background Paper No.10, 2004.
Department of Justice, Court Services Computer File 2004.
Freiberg, Arie and Ross, Stuart, Sentencing Reform and Penal Change: The Victorian Experience, Federation Press, 1999.
International Centre for Prison Studies, World Prison Brief, updated March 2005.
Productivity Commission, Steering Committee for the Review of Government Service Provision (2005) Report on Government Services 2005, Productivity Commission, Canberra.