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

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22 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: • • • 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.
Figure 2: Nested police data Underestimating offending The one obvious reason that police data may underestimate actual offending is that an offence is only recorded by the police if it comes to their attention and results in an apprehension (either as a result of a victim report or where the police are witnesses to the offence themselves). Therefore, police data generally underestimate an offender’s criminal behaviour because undetected offences committed by that offender will never be identified. In addition, there are a variety of offences and situations in which the police do not formally record an event, even if an offence is identified by them. In the case of trivial offending, for example, they may choose to ignore the behaviour. Or, if they do choose to proceed, there may be other options available which do not involve a formal apprehension. These may include: • • • OFFENCE Assault Vandalism Assault Stealing Steal MV Speeding OFFENDING EPISODE Altercation at local pub Break and enter Traffic DETECTION/ APPREHENSION Detected at time of break and enter, but dealt with for earlier assault offences Detected for traffic offence Key elements of recidivism ARREST Police arrest offender Police arrest offender CHARGES LAID Assault Steal MV Speeding offences that result in official diversion away from the criminal justice system – such as through police drug diversion offences that result in the imposition of an infringement notice – such as traffic offences and some drug offences offences that result in other forms of processing by police such as an informal caution or warning. 23
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Research and Public Policy Series N
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