NCJ Number
187811
Date Published
2000
Length
292 pages
Annotation
This first volume of a three-volume report on crime and criminal justice statistics for South Australia contains information on police-related activities for the period January 1 to December 31, 1999; Volume 2 deals exclusively with young offenders and the juvenile justice system, and Volume 3 focuses on adult courts and correctional services.
Abstract
The five main sections of this report are 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 characteristics of alleged perpetrators apprehended by police. In 1999, 196,209 incident reports were submitted by police. Although the number of such reports declined steadily between 1993 and 1997, this trend changed in 1998, with an increase of 11.6 percent. A further but more moderate increase of 7.6 percent occurred in 1999. The majority (83.6 percent) of incident reports submitted in 1999 involved one offense only. There were 243,394 offenses reported or otherwise known to police. Offenses against property dominated, accounting for almost two-thirds of reported offenses; this was a 9.2-percent increase in recorded offenses compared with the previous year. Following a marked increase in the number of offenses against the person (excluding sexual offenses) recorded in 1998, 1999 saw a 6.9-percent decline in the number of such offenses recorded. Sexual offenses decreased by 3.6 percent in 1999. Of the number of offenses recorded, 38.7 percent were cleared by the end of the year. The lowest clear-up rate was for property offenses (14.9 percent cleared by the end of 1999). Data on victims of offenses recorded by police cover gender and age. Data on alleged offenders address race, gender, and age. Extensive tables and explanatory notes