NCJ Number
204781
Date Published
2003
Length
297 pages
Annotation
This first of a three-volume report on crime and criminal justice statistics in South Australia contains information and statistics on police-related activities for the period January 1 to December 31, 2002.
Abstract
The five main sections of this report present statistics on the number of incident reports filed by police, the number of offenses recorded by police, the number of offenses cleared by police and the method of clearance, characteristics of victims who reported an offense to police, and the characteristics of alleged perpetrators apprehended by police. In 2002 police submitted 218,570 incident reports, which was only marginally lower than 2001. The majority of these reports involved only one offense. There were 296,952 offenses recorded by police, with offenses against property accounting for approximately 6 in 10 offenses recorded. The number of offenses recorded by police increased 1 percent over the previous year. Of the 296,952 offenses recorded by police, 127,402 (42.9 percent) were cleared by the end of the year. The lowest recorded clearances were for property offenses (16.1 percent cleared by the end of 2002). There were 118,948 offenses charged brought by police through apprehension reports in 2002. Persons aged 60 and over accounted for only 1.2 percent of the total. Over one-half of all charges (59.8 percent) were laid against persons in the 18-34 year age bracket. Almost 15 percent of all charges brought in 2002 involved juveniles (ages 10-17). Males accounted for the majority of apprehension reports lodged (81.1 percent). Of the 110,455 charges brought by police in 2002 where information on the racial appearance of the person was recorded, 12.3 percent involved persons of Aboriginal appearance. Of the 23,300 recorded victimizations, of those victimizations in which the sex of the victim was recorded, just over one-half (52.9 percent) involved males. Persons in the age ranges of 18-24 and 25-34 accounted for the highest proportion of personal victimizations recorded by police. Age profiles varied according to the type of offense and the sex of the victim. Extensive tables and explanatory notes