NSW records spike in people facing court

The number of women hauled before NSW courts on criminal charges has jumped 25 per cent over the past five years, new data shows.

Almost 30,000 females appeared in 2017 – up from just over 23,600 in 2013, according to a report released on Tuesday.

There was also a 15 per cent jump in male defendants, from just over 95,000 to about 109,500, the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research found.

In total, more than 141,000 people fronted NSW’s criminal courts last year – about 21,000 more than five years ago.

Roughly 90 per cent of them were found guilty of at least one charge.

The bureau says the spike in people arrested and brought before the courts has “greatly increased court delay” and the size of the state’s prison population.

The median time between committal for trial and an outcome in the NSW District Court increased 30 per cent, to 376 days.

In local courts, the median wait between arrest and a case being finalised rose 18 per cent.

There was also a 36 per cent jump in the number of convicted offenders sent to prison between 2013 and 2017.

The NSW Children’s Court is the only jurisdiction experiencing a substantial fall in workload, with both the number of defendants and juveniles imprisoned dropping.