CJB62
Trends in sentencing in the New South Wales criminal courts: 1990 - 2000
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Summary
Aim
This bulletin updates a previous report published by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research which examined trends in sentencing in NSW Criminal Courts between 1990 and 1997.
Abstract
This bulletin updates a previous report published by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research which examined trends in sentencing in NSW Criminal Courts between 1990 and 1997. In the present analysis, trends in imprisonment rates and in the average length of imprisonment between 1990 and 2000 are examined for the major offence categories of murder, manslaughter, assault, sexual assault, sexual offences against children, robbery, burglary/break and enter, fraud/forgery, and deal or traffic in opiates. The results show that the percentage of convicted persons imprisoned for each of these offences has either risen or remained stable in both the Higher and Local Courts. In addition, the average length of imprisonment imposed has remained stable for most of the offences. The exception to this general trend in the NSW Local Courts is a significant increase in the imprisonment term imposed for deal or traffic in opiates offences. In the NSW Higher Courts, there was a significant decrease in the imprisonment term imposed for robbery offences. The decreased imprisonment term, however, is offset by an upward trend in the proportion of convicted robbery offenders who were imprisoned over this time period.