Young people returning to sentenced youth justice supervision 2023–24

The YJ NMDS is a longitudinal data set with data available from 2000–01. This means it is possible to look at the complete rate of return for young people born between 1990–91 to 2005–06, as the YJ NMDS contains data on all supervised youth justice sentences for these young people from ages 10 to 17.

The rate of return is presented as the proportion of young people returned to sentenced supervision (see Glossary) out of all young people who could have returned to sentenced youth justice supervision.

Figure 1: Key findings of young people with a supervised sentence between 2000–01 to 2023–24 who returned to sentenced youth justice supervision before the age of 18

Note: Northern Territory data was not available for young people who had a sentence start in and 2023–24.

Source: Supplementary tables S1 and S4.

Of the 50,635 young people under sentenced supervision between 2000–01 to 2023–24 and born between 1990–91 to 2005–06, 21,011 (41%) returned to sentenced supervision before the age of 18 (Supplementary table S1).

Most young people (96%) received a first supervised sentence of community-based supervision. Of these, 41% returned to sentenced supervision before the age of 18 (Figure 1.1).

A small proportion of young people (3.8%) received a first supervised sentence of detention. Of these, just over half (51%) returned to sentenced supervision before the age of 18 (Figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1: Young people with a supervised sentence from 2000–01 to 2023–24, by type of first supervised sentence

Notes:

1. Data relate to young people aged 10–17 who were supervised from 2000–01 to 2023–24.
2. Northern Territory data was not available for young people who had a sentence start in 2023–24.

Source: Supplementary table S1.