Library guides: Statistics & datasets: Legal & justice

Statistics can be published by a range of different sources. See below for examples of sources for legal and justice-related statistics.

There may be resources beyond this guide that are useful for your topic area.

Consider the organisations, departments or groups that may be collecting statistics related to your field.

Sources of legal & justice statistics

Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) | Australian crime and justice statistics
A comprehensive source of national statistics. Key datasets include crime victimisation, prisoners in Australia, recorded crime, personal safety survey.
NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research | Lawlink NSW
Crime data and trends in NSW, including criminal court outcomes, reoffending rates, localised LGA data.
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)
Global data on crime, law enforcement, trafficking, and corruption.

OECD publications
Provides access to an extensive range of books, journals, working papers, podcasts, reports, policy briefs, statistics and data across 17 thematic collections.

World Prison Brief
A free resource that provides information and statistics about prison systems around the world.
Eurostat
The European Union’s statistical information service. Includes data visualisations and news articles, as well as statistics on population and social conditions, industry and trade, agriculture, transport, environment and energy, science and technology, economy, and finance.

Always evaluate the context of the data, who collected it, when, and why.
Use official government and academic sources to ensure reliability.
Combine statistical evidence with case law or legal principles to strengthen your argument.
Look for trends over time rather than isolated data points.

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