Recidivism in Australia : findings and future research - Australian ...

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Recidivism in Australia: findings and future research
Increasing the quality and availability of key demographic data
Understanding recidivism is as much about knowing how much there is and how often
it occurs, as it is about understanding who engages in it and why. To answer these
questions, researchers need to know more about recidivist offenders than simply the
number and type of offences they commit. Key indicators discussed earlier suggest
that an offender’s demographics and prior criminal history are important indicators
of recidivism that should not be overlooked. There is little doubt that national and
jurisdictional analyses of recidivism would be enhanced by the systematic collection
of key demographic information such as an offender’s age, gender and Indigenous
status, among others. Increasing the availability of such information requires improvements
in data collection within and between jurisdictions.
There are further considerations in discussing the improvement of data collection systems.
Who should be responsible for collecting the information? How will this information be stored
and shared between data systems? Consider the example of an Indigenous offender,
apprehended for the first time by the police, prosecuted in the local court and sent to prison.
When the offender is first arrested, should the arresting officer be responsible for recording
the offender’s Indigenous status? How should it be collected? When the offender appears
in court, will the court clerks also record Indigenous status or will the police give that information
to the court? If the court collects the information, and the police do not, will it be passed
back so that the police record contains it after conviction? Will the agency collecting the
information collect it at each consecutive contact with that offender or will the data be
transferred between records? If the data are collected with each contact, how will data
discrepancies be dealt with?
These are just some of the questions that require consideration in the development
of standardised data collection methodologies. A national minimum data framework
for recidivism indicators is needed that details what information should be collected
across the jurisdictions, and how it should be collected. The ABS’s recent work
in developing the standard Indigenous identification question is an example of what
is needed to ensure consistency across states and territories.