The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) has published a new report, Youth Justice in Australia 2023–24. 

The report provides information on young people who were under youth justice supervision in Australia during 2023–24 because of their involvement or alleged involvement in crime. It provides numbers and rates of young people under community supervision and in detention by age, gender, Indigenous status, as well as recent trends.

In the report, 'an average day' reflects the average number of young people under supervision on any given day during the year. It is a summary measure that reflects both the number of young people and the amount of time they spend under supervision.

‘An average day’ is calculated by summing the number of days each young person spends under supervision during the year and dividing this total by the number of days in the year. 

Over the 5 years from 2019–20 to 2023–24, the number of young people aged 10 and over under youth justice supervision on an average day fell by 18% (from 5,158 to 4,227). The rate of young people aged 10–17 fell by 23% from 16 to 12 per 10,000 young people over the same period.

There were 4,227 young people aged 10 and over under youth justice supervision on an average day in 2023–24 and 9,224 were supervised at some point during the year.

On an average day, just over 4 in 5 (82%) young people under supervision were supervised in the community and around 1 in 5 (20%) were in detention, with some supervised in both the community and detention on the same day. Nearly all young people (96%) under supervision were aged 14 or older and the majority (80%) in detention were unsentenced.

The rate for First Nations young people aged 10–17 under supervision on an average day fell from 127 to 113 per 10,000 between 2019–20 and 2023–24.

The full report is available by clicking our website.