The statistics in this publication are derived from quarterly reports on juvenile detention submitted to the Australian Institute of Criminology by the relevant juvenile justice authorities in each Australian jurisdiction. The publication comments on legislative differences between jurisdictions, changes from previous reports, calculating rates of detention per head of relevant population, the method of calculating Indigenous over representation, and general trends, 1981 to 2001. Statistics are presented for males, females and total numbers in juvenile detention, 1981-2001; Indigenous people in juvenile detention, 1994-2001; males, females, people aged 10 to 17 and people aged over 18 in juvenile detention, 2000-2001; percentage of sentenced people in juvenile detention, 2000-2001; and level of over representation of Indigenous people in juvenile detention, 1994-2001 (on a state by state basis). The figures show that over the past twenty years, there has been a general decline in the number of people aged 10 to 17 in juvenile detention centres throughout Australia.