Community Consultation: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander crime data needs

The Crime Statistics Agency (CSA) produces the official aggregate Victorian crime statistics. These statistics are derived from the administrative information recorded by Victoria Police and extracted from the Law Enforcement Assistance Program (LEAP) database. Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander* recorded crime statistics collected by Victoria Police contain a significant proportion of unknown or missing values. The use of datasets with many unknown or missing values pose significant challenges and are often deemed unfit for general use.


After community consultation in 2016 the CSA implemented a ‘most frequent’ counting rule to improve the Aboriginal data quality. Implementation of this counting rule did not improve the Aboriginal Family Incident data and Victim report data sufficiently for public release on the CSA website. The Aboriginal Alleged Offender data quality was previously sufficient for public release; however, data quality has continued to decline over time and from March 2019 the CSA withdrew these data from public release due to quality concerns.


Victoria Police have advised that an issue with the extraction of these data from LEAP may be contributing to the declining Aboriginal data quality. While Victoria Police fix the system issues the CSA is focussing on understanding the Aboriginal crime data requirements to ensure that any future data releases can best meet the needs of our stakeholders.


The CSA has engaged with key stakeholders about Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander crime data requirements and would now like to engage with community about these draft findings. We give our gratitude to the many Aboriginal people who generously contributed their wisdom, experience, expertise and cultural insights during the development of the draft findings.  


We are seeking your views about the draft Aboriginal crime data information needs. Please provide us with your feedback about the draft questions. The public consultation will close at 5pm on 9 December 2019. 


We look forward to hearing your views.

Written submission
The CSA can be reached by post at:
Chief Statistician
Crime Statistics Agency
GPO Box 4356
Melbourne Vic 3001

By e-mail
The CSA can be reached via email at info@crimestatistics.vic.gov.au (External link)

 

*For the purposes of this page the term Aboriginal refers to the response a person has provided to Victoria Police when the Standard Indigenous Question was asked (Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander status).

Author
Crime Statistics Agency, 2019
Publisher
Crime Statistics Agency, 2019
Date of Publication

 

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