Facts & Figures• Overall the number of victims recorded by Australian police declined in most offence categories in 2003. This was particularly the case for offences involving the taking of property.

• The assault victimisation rate for 2003 was 798 per 100,000 persons, a 2% decrease from 2002 (815 per 100,000). This was the first decrease in the victimisation rate for this offence category since 1995.

• The sexual assault victimisation rate increased from 71 to 92 per 100,000 persons between 1994 and 2003.

• Victimisation rates for homicide and related offences remained fairly stable, ranging from 5 to 6 per 100,000 persons between 1994 and 2003.

• Other offence categories for which there were increases between 2002 and 2003 in numbers of victims recorded, included blackmail/extortion (4%) and kidnapping/abduction (1%). Driving causing death (15%) also increased, but a 19% decrease in the number of victims of manslaughter, a 12% decrease in attempted murder and a 5% decrease in murders resulted in an overall decrease in victims for the homicide and related offences category.

• More males than females were victims of robbery and blackmail/extortion (68% of victims were male for both), murder and attempted murder (both 67%) and assault (57%). For sexual assault and kidnapping/abduction more females were victims than males (82% and 62%).

•Persons aged 24 years or less comprised the majority of recorded victims of sexual assault (72%) and kidnapping/abduction (71%), and nearly half of victims of robbery (49%). In contrast, this age group comprised less than one in three victims of attempted murder (31%), murder (27%), driving causing death (25%) and blackmail/extortion (25%).

•Persons in the 15-19 year and 20-24 year age groups had the highest assault rates (1,600 per 100,000 population). This was more than twice the total assault victimisation rate, and has been the same since 1995.

• For sexual assault, males aged 14 years and under had the highest victimisation rate (89 per 100,000 population) of any male age group and their rate was nearly three times that of the general male population.

• For females the highest sexual assault victimisation rate was for the 10-19 year age group (497 per 100,000 population), over three times the rate for the general female population.

• Persons aged 15-19 years were three and a half times more likely to be victims of robbery than the general population.

• The victimisation rate for robbery was the highest in the 20-24 year age group for females (117 per 100,000 population) but highest in the 15-19 year age group for males (468 per 100,000 population).

• Approximately half of the victims of murder, attempted murder, assault and sexual assault knew their offender. For sexual assault, the victim was four times more likely to know the offender than not.

• For murder, attempted murder, assault and sexual assault, the victim was most likely to have been subjected to the offence in a residential location. This was especially the case for victims of sexual assault where two in three victims were sexually assaulted in a residential location.

• More than three in five victims of kidnapping/abduction were taken from a community location, with more than one in four taken from a residential location.

• For unlawful entry with intent, the location was most likely to be a residential location (66%), while for robbery and motor vehicle theft more than half of the victims were subjected to an offence in a community location. For those offences which occurred in a community location, a street/footpath was the most frequent location for each offence type, with the exception of sexual assault and unlawful entry with intent.

• At 30 days after an offence became known to police in 2003, over half of the investigations into manslaughter (69%), attempted murder (68%), murder (64%) and assault (59%) had been finalised. The offences with the lowest proportion of finalisations at 30 days were unlawful entry with intent (8%), motor vehicle theft (11%), other theft (15%) and robbery (21%).

• Police were most likely to have proceeded against an offender at 30 days for homicide and related offences: driving causing death (95%), attempted murder (92%), manslaughter (89%) and murder (87%).

• Offences involving unlawful entry with intent, motor vehicle theft and other theft had a low proportion of finalisations at 30 days, but of those that were finalised, a high proportion were proceeded against by police – unlawful entry with intent (78%), motor vehicle theft (71%) and other theft (85%).

•  The offence categories which had the highest proportion of investigations finalised where there was no offender proceeded against included sexual assault (53%) and kidnapping/abduction (41%).

•  A weapon was most likely to have been used in attempted murder (76%) and murder (58%), and least likely in sexual assault (1%) in 2003.

•  With the exception of assault, a knife was the most common type of weapon used and was involved in 33% of attempted murders, 28% of murders and 19% of robberies. A firearm was involved in 20% of attempted murders, 13% of murders and 6% of robberies.

•  A firearm was used in 6% of robberies recorded in 2003, the equal lowest proportion since national reporting began in 1993. The proportion of murders involving a firearm in 2003 was also at its lowest on record at 13%.

•  Firearm use in murders peaked at 32% in 1996, but has since declined steadily. For attempted murders in 2003, a firearm was used in 20% of offences, marginally above its low of 19% in 1998 and well below its high of 32% in 1999.