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This page provides detailed information on how to use SACStat.
A summary of how to use SACStat is also available in our two-page SACStat User Guide.
SACStat includes statistics on:
Statistics are organised according to offence.
You can find an offence by using:
Magistrates’ Court and higher courts outcomes have separate offence search pages and legislation indexes in SACStat. Links to these are found in the top menu on all SACStat pages (Higher Courts Offence Search, Higher Courts Legislation Index, Magistrates’ Court Offence Search and Magistrates’ Court Legislation Index).
Each offence search page has a ‘Search by offence name’ field. Enter all or part of the name of an offence into the search field and click the Search button. This will return a list of all offences matching your search. Click on an offence name in the search results to view the sentencing statistics for that offence.
If a search query fails to return a match, check your spelling or try typing in part of a word, for example, ‘caus’ for ‘causing’ or ‘cause’.
Boolean operators such as AND, OR, NOT or NEAR are not currently supported on SACStat.
Each legislation index lists offences under their corresponding legislation. Acts, Regulations and Rules are listed in alphabetical order under the A to Z tabs at the top of the page. Common law offences are listed under the ‘C' tab.
Offences are ordered under the relevant legislation by statutory reference (e.g. section or regulation). For example, the offence of ‘robbery’ is found under the ‘C’ tab > Crimes Act 1958 (Vic) > s 75 - robbery.
Click on an offence name in the legislation index to view the sentencing statistics for that offence.
If you are unable to find an offence by either search method, it may not be included in SACStat. SACStat excludes offences with fewer than 40 charges sentenced in the Magistrates' Court or with fewer than 10 charges sentenced in the higher courts during the applicable reference periods.
Each offence page includes:
Below this information is a series of tabs, each corresponding to a graph that shows information about the offence.
Magistrates' Court sentencing data has three top-level tabs for each offence:
The Sentence Type (Cases) tab shows all the sentence types for cases that include one or more charges of the offence. The total number of cases is indicated above the graph. The graph shows the percentage of cases that received each sentence type.
You can find data on the gender and age group of offenders by clicking on the second row of tabs: All People, Males, Females, Age 18–19, Age 20–24, Age 25–34, Age 35–44, Age 45–54, Age 55+.
The Sentence Type (Charges) tab shows all the sentence types imposed for charges of the offence. The total number of charges is indicated above the graph. The graph shows the percentage of charges that received each sentence type.
The Sentence Length (Cases/Charges) tab shows the sentence length or the fine amount for both cases and charges.
The Imprisonment tab brings up three subtabs:
The partially suspended sentence tab brings up three subtabs:
The wholly suspended sentence tab, community correction order tab and intensive correction order tab bring up a graph showing sentence lengths in months for charges that received each outcome. Each graph has two columns: one for aggregate sentences and one for non-aggregate sentences. Under the Sentencing Act 1991 (Vic), aggregate sentences are not available for community correction orders and intensive correction orders, so the aggregate columns for these sentence types will be empty.
The community-based order tab shows sentence lengths in months for charges of the offence.
The fine tab includes the fine amount in dollars for charges of the offence according to whether the outcome is an aggregate or a non-aggregate fine.
Higher courts sentencing data has four top-level tabs for each offence:
The Sentence Type (Cases) tab shows the sentence types imposed for cases in which the offence was the principal proven offence (i.e. the offence within a case that received the most severe sentence). The total number of cases is indicated above the graph. The graph shows the percentage of cases that received each sentence type.
You can find data on the gender and age group of offenders by clicking on the second row of tabs: All People, Males, Females, Age < 20, Age 20–24, Age 25–34, Age 35–44, Age 45–54, Age 55+.
The Sentence Length (Cases) tab organises the data for cases according to the following sentence types or non-parole periods, each with its own tab:
Each tab includes:
You can find data on the gender and age group of offenders by clicking on the third row of tabs: All People, Males, Females, Age < 20, Age 20–24, Age 25–34, Age 35–44, Age 45–54, Age 55+.
In addition, the Imprisonment by Non-Parole Period tab incorporates a tile graph with data on each combination of total effective sentence and non-parole period for cases that received imprisonment. The size of each tile reflects the number of cases with that combination of total effective sentence and non-parole period: the larger the tile, the greater the number of offenders who received that combination. Hovering over a tile shows the number and percentage of cases represented by the tile.
The Sentencing Outcomes (Charges) tab brings up two subtabs:
Each subtab includes:
The Case Profile tab brings up three subtabs:
For higher courts offences, graphs only display if there are 10 or more charges or cases available. If there are fewer than 10 cases or charges in the data, a message will read ‘Insufficient data to display'.
You can view the data tables for each offence by clicking on the Data Tables button above the tabs.
SACStat includes offence summaries for all Magistrates’ Court offences and any higher courts offences with at least 10 charges and cases that received imprisonment. You can access an offence summary by clicking the Offence Summary button above the tabs (next to the Data Tables button). The offence summary will appear in a new window.
Offence summaries are not supported in Internet Explorer.
You can print SACStat graphs, tables and offence summaries using the print menu in your browser. When saving to PDF, turn on 'headers and footers' and 'background graphics' in your printer settings to ensure all content is included.