In 2023–24, Queensland's criminal courts sentenced 115,752 cases, with 95.3% of these sentenced in the Magistrates Courts.

The number of cases sentenced in the Magistrates Courts decreased by 3.5% in 2023–24 (from 114,261 cases in 2022–23 to 110,306 in 2023–24).

Over the same period, the number of sentenced cases in the higher courts decreased by 0.4% (from 5,466 to 5,446 cases). In the District Court, cases increased by 2.7% (from 4,440 to 4,560 cases), while in the Supreme Court cases decreased by 13.6% (from 1,026 to 886 cases).

Adult offending

For adults sentenced in the higher courts, drug offences saw a reduction of 8.4 per cent in 2023–24. This shift marked the first time in ten years that drug-related offences were not the predominant offence. Acts intended to cause injury became the leading category of offences, rising by 4.7 per cent in 2023–24.

In the Magistrates Courts, traffic and vehicle offences (such as driving without a licence, or vehicle offences involving alcohol or other drugs) were the most common offences sentenced, followed by justice and government offences (such as breaching a court order or breaching bail), with cases involving both of these offence categories decreasing (by 6.1% and 0.6% respectively).

Child offending

For children sentenced in the higher courts, robbery remained the most common offence category. The number of cases remained relatively unchanged from the previous year (dropping by 1 case in 2023–24), with the number of cases sentenced remaining lower than the peak of 396 cases observed in 2019–20.

Acts intended to cause injury fell by 17.3 per cent in 2023–24. Although theft offences and unlawful entry offences rose by 1.9 per cent and 15.7 per cent, respectively.

In the Magistrates Courts theft offences (which includes motor vehicle theft) remained the most common, increasing by 9.7 per cent in 2023–24. Unlawful entry increased by 0.5%.

Offences against justice and government (such as breaching a court order or breaching bail) increased by 73.8 per cent. This change is driven by reforms made on 22 March 2023 which made it an offence for a child to breach a condition of their bail.

This data refers to the most serious penalty that is imposed on an offender at court on a particular day.

Adult penalties

In the higher courts, imprisonment was the most common penalty imposed on adults, with an increase of 5.9% from the previous year.

In the Magistrates Courts, the most common penalty imposed on adults was a monetary order, such as a fine, compensation, or restitution order, with 63.0% of all cases receiving this outcome as their most serious penalty.

1 in 10 adults in the Magistrates Courts were sentenced to imprisonment in 2023–24 (10.3%, 10,773 cases). This was an increase of 9.5% from the previous year (9,838 to 10,773 cases).

Child penalties

Sentencing laws are different for children, who are sentenced under the Youth Justice Act 1992 (Qld).

Probation was the most common sentence imposed on children in the higher courts (44.9% of all cases in 2023–24).

There were 96 detention orders made in the higher courts in 2023–24, making it the second most common sentence and accounting for 17.4% of cases sentenced.

In the Magistrates Courts, most children were reprimanded. Orders of probation and court diversion referral were also common.

There were 284 detention orders made in the Magistrates Courts – an increase of 8.0% from the previous year. Overall, 4.7% of children sentenced in the Magistrates Courts received detention.

Notes ‍

How is the data counted:

Chart 1: 'Number of sentencing events by level of court'

The first chart on this page has three different measures which you can toggle between: cases, offenders and offences.

• Cases refers to the number of final court appearances in which a final sentence was imposed for one or more offences. A single offender may appear in multiple cases over the reporting period.
• Offenders refers to the unique count of individuals sentenced in each financial year.
• Offences are proven charges that resulted in a penalty being imposed.

Chart 2: 'Types of offences sentenced over time'

The second chart on this page provides a count of cases by type of offence. As described above, a case is a court hearing which resulted in a sentencing being imposed. Importantly, if a case involves multiple types of offences, it will be counted in each of the offence categories. This means that the total number of cases in this table will exceed the total number of cases reported in the first table on this page.

As described in the previous bullet point, the second chart on this page reports on high level categories of offences. These offences are classified according to the Australian Standard Offence Classification – Queensland Extension (QASOC). For more information on this classification scheme, visit the Queensland Government Statistician’s Office website.

Chart 3: 'Number of penalties given over time'

The third chart on this page provides a count of cases by type of penalty. While a case may contain multiple penalties, for the purposes of this analysis, we count only the most serious offence (MSO) sentenced in each case. The MSO is the offence which received the most serious penalty, as ranked by the Sentence Type Classification used by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) - see Criminal Courts, Australia methodology, 2021–22.

All charts

• The data reported on this webpage excludes:
  • action taken on breach of a suspended sentence
  • penalties that are orders for disqualification from holding or obtaining a driver licence
  • cases that did not result in a sentence - for example charges which were withdrawn by the prosecution, dismissed, or where the defendant was found not guilty.
• A child is defined as a person whose MSO resulted in a penalty imposed under the Youth Justice Act 1992 (Qld). In Queensland, from 12 February 2018, a person who offends while under the age of 18 years is considered a child. Prior to this date, those aged under 17 years were sentenced as children, meaning that 17-year-olds were sentenced as adults. Any child under the age of 10 years at the time of the offence is not considered to be legally responsible for criminal behaviour.

Data source

This webpage uses data that has been collected from administrative information systems used by the Department of Justice and Attorney-General. The Queensland Government Statistician’s Office, within Queensland Treasury, provides the Courts Database to the Queensland Sentencing Advisory Council.

The information presented on this webpage may vary from data published elsewhere due to differences in the dates data were extracted or in the counting rules applied. The data on this webpage was extracted from the Courts Database in August 2024.

Previous releases

This webpage is updated annually. For previous releases, please see the links below:

• Sentencing trends for 2005–06 to 2022–23
• Sentencing trends for 2005–06 to 2021–22
• Sentencing trends for 2005–06 to 2019–20
• Sentencing trends for 2005–06 to 2018–19