8.4 Non supervision community sentence starts per year trend by offence group

For more details see: data source and enrichment methodology; data spreadsheet; offence category.

The graph above gives trends in those offenders managed on community sentences other than "supervision". Since July 2002 the only community sentence type available other than supervision has been community work. In earlier years different terms and different regimes have been involved, most notably "community service" and "periodic detention".

The non-supervision community sentences grouped here have generally contained elements of reparation to the community as well as punishment, whereas "supervision" has leaned more towards interventions and management to address the participant’s offending issues.

It is noteworthy that in the two graphs above there are differences in offence profiles between the two classes of community sentence; violent offences are considerably more likely to attract a supervision sentence, while drunk or drugged drivers are more likely to be given

"community work". Again, the sudden changes in the numbers of offenders are most likely due to policy and procedure changes rather than social changes. For instance the spike in "miscellaneous / against good order" numbers around 1999 largely relate to fines defaulters being diverted to Corrections’ management.