People with disability are over-represented in the criminal justice system

This page presents findings from the NSW Justice Test Case of the National Disability Data Asset (NDDA) pilot. Jointly led by BOCSAR and the Commonwealth Department of Social Services (DSS), the NSW Justice Test Case used State and Commonwealth administrative data collections to identify a cohort of 2.8 million people who received a core disability support and/or who had contact with the NSW criminal justice system as a victim or as an offender over a 10-year period.

• 27.1% of adult offenders and 47.9% of adults with custodial contact were identified as people with disability. 
• 24.0% of young offenders and 40.8% of young people with custodial contact were identified as people with disability. 
• 18.0% of victims of crime were people with disability and 24.0% of criminal incidents (where a victim was recorded) involved people with disability as victims.
• People with disability were more than twice as likely to be victims of violent and domestic violence-related crime, relative to the total NSW population.

Statistics drawn from this research can be explored in the sections below with interactive charts: