How to use SACStat

Data on SACStat is organised according to offence. You can find an offence by using the search tool or browsing our lists of offences.

Search offences

You can search for offences using the 'search for an offence' field on the home page and the search offences page. The search tool supports full and partial word matches (e.g. 'culpable driving' and 'culp driv'). The search tool will return all offences that include your search term(s) in the offence name.

Browse offences

The browse offences page includes options for viewing all offence names and legislation, as well as offence names and legislation by jurisdiction.

Offence names are ordered alphabetically. Legislation is ordered alphabetically by legislation name then alphanumerically by the statutory reference (e.g. section or regulation) of each offence. For example, the offence of 'robbery' is found on offence lists under 'R' > Robbery, Crimes Act 1958 (Vic) s 75, and on legislation lists under 'C' > Crimes Act 1958 (Vic) s 75: Robbery.

The jurisdiction is specified on lists of all offences and all legislation, for example, Crimes Act 1958 (Vic) s 75: Robbery - higher courts and Robbery, Crimes Act 1958 (Vic) s 75 - Magistrates' Court.

What if I can't find an offence?

If you are unable to find an offence, it may not be included on SACStat. SACStat excludes offences with fewer than 40 charges sentenced in the Magistrates' Court or fewer than 10 charges sentenced in the higher courts during the applicable reference periods.

Offence summaries

Each offence includes a summary above the graphs. The summary specifies the number of charges and the most common sentence for charges. If the offence includes 10 or more cases, the summary specifies the number of cases, the most common sentence for cases and the gender of offenders. Note that if two sentencing outcomes are the most common, the most severe of the two is included in the summary.

You can collapse and expand the summary by clicking on the 'Summary' heading.

Navigating the graphs menu

For each offence on SACStat, you can select sentencing outcomes for charges and cases using the graphs menu:

  • charges graphs are useful for seeing the overall prevalence of an offence and its sentencing outcomes
  • cases graphs are based on only counting the offence once in each case it appears in. Cases graphs therefore allow for meaningful analysis of offender characteristics, such as gender and age group.

Charges graphs include:

  • all sentencing outcomes
  • imprisonment lengths that were not part of an aggregate sentence
  • community correction order lengths
  • fine amounts that were not part of an aggregate sentence.

Higher courts offences also include youth justice centre order lengths that were not part of an aggregate sentence.

Cases graphs include:

  • all sentencing outcomes
  • imprisonment lengths (including combined orders)
  • non-parole periods
  • community correction order lengths (including combined orders).

Higher courts offences also include youth justice centre order lengths, fine amounts, the age and gender of offenders and the number of charges per case.

Time series data

The charges graphs menu includes time series data on:

  • all sentencing outcomes by year
  • number sentenced by year
  • average imprisonment lengths (that were not part of an aggregate sentence) by year
  • average community correction order lengths by year
  • average fine amounts (that were not part of an aggregate sentence) by year.

The cases graphs menu includes time series data on:

  • all sentencing outcomes by year (gender and age group options are also available)
  • number sentenced by year (gender and age group options are also available)
  • average imprisonment lengths by year (including data on combined orders)
  • average imprisonment lengths and non-parole periods by year
  • average community correction order lengths by year.

Standard sentences

A 'standard sentences' option is located at the bottom of the charge and case menus for higher courts offences that are subject to standard sentence classification, such as murder and culpable driving causing death. Standard sentence data is available where there were 10 or more charges of a standard sentence offence in the five-year period.

Saving the data

You can download the full dataset for each offence as an Excel file by clicking 'get the data file', which is located above each graph. Each graph number corresponds to a sheet number in the Excel file.

For higher courts offences, data tables in the relevant Excel file have a message reading 'insufficient data to display' when there are fewer than 10 cases or charges.

For Magistrates' Court offences, data tables in the relevant Excel file have a message reading 'no data to display' when there are no cases or charges.

You can save the summary and all the graphs for an offence by clicking the 'print summary and graphs to PDF' button, which is located above each graph. Note that some browsers print from the position of the page displayed on screen.

Need more help?

If you need further help with SACStat, please get in touch with us via our Contact us page, or email us at contact@sentencingcouncil.vic.gov.au.