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

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Recidivism in Australia: findings and future research
According to Figure 2, each apprehension resulted in an arrest, which is the action taken
by the police before formally charging the offender for their crimes. Laying charges and
commencing court proceedings is the final step. Not all offences from all offending episodes
result in a formal charge, however. In Figure 2, for example, only three of the six original
offences resulted in a formal charge.
While the relationship between the five stages outlined in Figure 2 is sometimes difficult to
quantify, it is worth noting the following general rules:
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An apprehension may include just one offence from one offending episode or multiple
offences resulting from a single or multiple offending episodes.
When police locate an offender and choose to initiate formal proceedings, they may
either arrest the individual or issue a report (summons) or a court attendance notice.
An arrest is the more serious of these responses, because the individual is detained
and taken back to the police station for formal questioning and charging. An arrest
record normally contains information about one apprehension event but not all
apprehensions result in a formal arrest.
Not all offences involved in the original offending episode result in a formal police charge.
For example, if an offending episode involves a serious criminal act accompanied by
relatively minor offending behaviour, police may decide to charge the individual with
only the most serious act. Alternatively, police may feel they have insufficient evidence
to charge them with all of the offences. (However, although not depicted in Figure 2,
the opposite may also apply – police may opt to lay duplicate charges for the same
offence to increase the likelihood of securing a conviction for at least one charge).
Of the five stages depicted in Figure 2, a unique event identification and person identification
number is often recorded in police databases to serve two purposes. First, it may allow three
of the five stages - an apprehension, an arrest and a charge to be linked. Second, it ensures
that, where an offender is identified as having an existing criminal record, any new event
recorded against that unique person identification number will be identifiable. In the absence
of a unique identification number, the offender’s name and date of birth can also be used
to link a fresh apprehension with previous apprehension records. The consolidated list
of apprehensions and criminal events recorded for each individual provides the basis
for identifying recidivism levels for a group of individuals.