Today we released a new set of Sentencing Snapshots for nine homicide and sexual offences sentenced in the County and Supreme Courts of Victoria.
The nine offences are :
- murder
- manslaughter
- culpable driving causing death
- rape
- sexual assault
- persistent sexual abuse of a child aged under 16
- sexual penetration of a child aged 12 to under 16
- sexual penetration of a child aged under 12
- incest.
The new Snapshots present data on sentences imposed for these nine offences in the five years to 30 June 2024. The data includes the number of cases and the sentence types and lengths imposed for each of these offences when the offence was the principal offence (the most serious offence) in a case.
Some key features of the data include:
- in 2023–24, the average prison sentence for people found guilty of murder (excluding life sentences) was 24 years and 10 months – this was the longest average prison sentence for this offence in at least the last 25 years
- the two most recent financial years saw a significant increase in the number of people found guilty of rape: 73 people in 2022–23 and 80 people in 2023–24, compared to an average of about 40 people each year in the 21 years to 2021-22
- rape offences also received some of the longest prison sentences in at least 25 years - in 2023–24, the average sentence for a single charge of rape was 6 years and 5 months.
COVID-19 affected court operations during this period, particularly in 2020-21 and 2021-22, and this was expected to reduce the number of cases sentenced each year as well as affect the types of sentences imposed.
New Snapshot Annexures
New annexures are appended to each Snapshot. These annexures offer a summary of case law for courts and practitioners about the role of statistics in the sentencing process.
The new Sentencing Snapshots are available for download from our website. Sentencing statistics for these and many other offences are also available on SACStat.
