Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people are not overrepresented in the criminal justice system.

By 2031, reduce the rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people (10–17 years) in detention by at least 30%.

Proportion of young people first coming into youth justice system aged 10–13 (offending and courts data, first entry to detention).

There are four measures for this indicator.

Measure 1 is the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people who were aged 10–13 years when they first entered youth detention:

Numerator – number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people whose age at first youth detention was 10–13 years

Denominator – number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who were in youth detention during the year

and is presented as a percentage.

Measure 2 is the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people who were aged 10–13 years when they first entered youth justice supervision:

Numerator – number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people whose age at first youth justice supervision was 10–13 years

Denominator – number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people under youth justice supervision during the year

and is presented as a percentage.

Measure 3 is the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young defendants at criminal court who were aged 10–13 years:

Numerator – number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young defendants who were aged 10–13 years amongst defendants finalised at criminal courts

Denominator – number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young defendants (aged 10–17 years) finalised at criminal courts

and is presented as a percentage.

Measure 4 is the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people proceeded against by police who were aged 10–13 years:

Numerator – number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people proceeded against by police who were aged 10–13 years:

Denominator – number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 10–17 years proceeded against by police

and is presented as a percentage.

National Agreement on Closing the Gap July 2020

31 July 2024

Driver

A low or decreasing proportion is desirable.

Measures 1 and 2

Name : Youth Justice National Minimum Dataset (YJ NMDS)

Frequency: Annual

Documentation (links): https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports-data/health-welfare-services/youth-justice

Measure 3

Name: Criminal Courts, Australia

Frequency: Annual

Documentation: https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/crime-and-justice/criminal-courts-australia/latest-release

Measure 4

Name (denominator): Recorded Crime – Offenders

Frequency: Annual

Documentation: https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/crime-and-justice/recorded-crime-offenders

Measures 1 and 2

Provider name: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW)

Provider area: Youth justice

Measures 3 and 4

Provider name: Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)

Provider area: National Centre for Crime and Justice Statistics

2018‑19

All measures:2022-23

State and territory and Australia, by Indigenous status.

Numerator divided by Denominator multiplied by 100.

Counting rules

All measures

Excludes people for whom Indigenous status was not stated. (Data on the number where the Indigenous status was not stated is provided for context.)

Measure 1 and 2

Includes (Denominator):

• Some people aged 18 and over. State and territory government youth justice legislation applies to children and young people aged 10–17 years. Most people in youth detention or under community-based youth justice supervision are aged 10–17, although some are aged 18 and over (and are treated as a young person due to their vulnerability or immaturity).

The YJ NMDS contains the date on which the youth justice agency first supervised or case managed each young person under supervision (in the community and in detention). This date is used in analyses of age when they entered youth detention or youth justice supervision.

The ‘during the year’ measure is a count of the number of individuals who were supervised at any time during the financial year. It is calculated by counting each distinct young person once, even if they entered and exited supervision multiple times.

Measure 1

Periods of detention include police-referred detention (before the young person’s initial court appearance), remand (court-referred detention following a court appearance) and sentenced detention.

Measure 2

Periods of youth justice supervision includes detention and community‑based youth justice supervision. Community‑based youth justice supervision is an alternative to detention, where a sentenced order or an unsentenced order (such as conditional bail) is served in the community.

Measure 3

The Criminal Courts data presents information about defendants who were finalised in the criminal jurisdictions of the Higher (Supreme and District/County Courts), Magistrates' and Children's Courts across Australia’s states and territories.

The counting unit is the finalised defendant. A finalised defendant is defined as a person or organisation for whom all charges within a case have been formally completed so that they cease to be an active item of work for the court during the reference period. One person may be counted multiple times.

The Indigenous status data is generally based on information collected and recorded by police and transferred to courts systems (upon defendant initiation in the courts). The police information is based upon self-identification by the individual (or via a response from next of kin/guardian). 

The age presented in the Criminal Courts data refers to the age (in years) of defendants at the time of case finalisation. It is not the age at which the defendant committed the offence.

Excludes defendants proceeded against for traffic offences.

Measure 4

People proceeded against by police represents a person aged 10 years or over who is proceeded against and recorded by police for one or more criminal offences. An offender is only counted once during the reference period irrespective of the number of offences committed or the number of separate occasions that police proceeded against that offender.

Children under the age of criminal responsibility in their jurisdiction are not proceeded against by police.

All measures

Percentages data, by Indigenous status, for this indicator should be used with caution as they are based on small numbers. Please refer to the How to interpret the data page for more information.

Measure 1 and 2

Data by Indigenous status are influenced by the quality of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander identification of young people in the YJ NMDS. About 5% of all young people in the YJ NMDS since 2000-01 have an unknown Indigenous status. In 2021-22, about 2% of all young people under supervision during the year had an unknown Indigenous status. Among the states and territories, this ranged from less than 1% in Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory to 6% in New South Wales. Western Australia had no unknown Indigenous status.

Data about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander defendants is included for selected states and territories meeting ABS standards for inclusion in national reporting.

Caution should be used when comparing Indigenous status data across state and territories or time periods, due to variations in the proportion of offenders with unknown Indigenous status. Additionally, data on Indigenous defendants should be considered in the context of the broader state or territory population profile and differing age structures.

Measure 3

Data by the Indigenous status of defendants finalised in the criminal courts is only available for New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory. Based on ABS assessment, Indigenous status data for Victoria and Western Australia are not of sufficient quality and/or did not meet ABS standards for national reporting.

Defendants proceeded against for traffic offences often do not have Indigenous status information recorded, therefore defendants with a principal offence of Dangerous or negligent operation of a vehicle, or Traffic and vehicle regulatory offences, are excluded from the statistics.

Defendants may appear in two court levels for the same charge, such as those committed from the Magistrates’ court to a Higher court for trial or sentencing, however in the statistics presented here, only the latter finalisation (excluding transfers) is included to avoid double counting.

In the Australian Capital Territory, defendants identified as non-Indigenous (from Police data) are combined with defendants with unknown Indigenous status in Courts systems. Therefore, data for this jurisdiction is presented together in a ‘non-Indigenous and not stated’ category.

In 2022, New South Wales Police implemented mandatory recording of Indigenous Status, which reduced the number of defendants with a not stated/unknown Indigenous status.

For further information see https://www.abs.gov.au/methodologies/criminal-courts-australia-methodology

Measure 4

The quality of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander identification varies across jurisdictions. Data is only available by Indigenous status for New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory. Based on an ABS assessment, Indigenous status data for other states is not of sufficient quality and/or do not meet ABS standards for national reporting.

Measures 3 and 4

Data values have been randomly adjusted by the ABS using perturbation to avoid the release of confidential data. Discrepancies may occur between sums of the component items and totals.

The quality of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander identification varies across jurisdictions. Caution should be used when comparing Indigenous status data across states and territories or time periods, due to variations in the proportion of people with unknown Indigenous status.

Future reporting will seek to include the following additional disaggregations:

• geographic area (remoteness, other geographic categories where available)
• socio‑economic status of the locality
• gender.