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The literature on hate crime in the last 15 years covers a wealth of surveys, research and theories on crimes of bias/prejudice which target another person because of their sexuality, race, ethnicity or religion. There are inherent difficulties associated with research into the most extreme form of hate crime—homicide, and more specifically gay-hate related homicides. Some of these difficulties include the accurate identification, classification and recording of these incidents once the primary witness has been killed.

Shoplifting is one of the most common crimes affecting small businesses in Australia. More than one in five businesses that participated in the 1999 Small Business Crime Survey reported being the victim of shoplifting. It has been estimated that shoplifting costs Australian businesses around $810 million annually.

Unlike most other criminal offences, sex offences usually occur within personal settings with few, if any corroborating witnesses, so a conviction may rely on the victim's word against that of the offender (Queensland. Crime and Misconduct Commission 2003). If an offender confesses to an investigator, three important advantages may result:

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Foreword | The idea has been gathering momentum for 50 years or more that institutions of care such as families or schools are more important in preventing crime than institutions of regulation such as the police. However, there are big gaps in our knowledge about how well civil-society initiatives work, including the effectiveness of family-support services that are often available in socially disadvantaged communities.

Online fraud poses a substantial threat to the financial and overall wellbeing of Australians. An estimated $8m to $10m is sent overseas every month by Australians as a result of dishonest online invitations (Bradley 2013). The latest report of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC 2015) indicates that Australians reported the loss of almost $82m to consumer fraud in 2014; this estimate is based only on reports made to the ACCC and excludes reports made to other organisations and the many cases that are not officially reported.

Foreword | Online fraud occurs when an individual or a business responds in some manner to an unsolicited invitation received via the internet and suffers financial or other detrimental effects as a result. In 2010–11, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2012) found that over 1.2 million Australians (6.7% of the population aged 15 years and over) had been a victim of personal fraud, losing approximately $1.4b in the preceding 12 months. More than half of these victims (55.7%) were contacted via the internet or email (online victimisation).

The extent of money laundering in and through Australia and its annual impact on the national economy can be estimated using a number of different methods. The figure below shows how these estimates can vary widely in both total amount and upper and lower limits, depending on the method used. A research project funded by the Criminology Research Council (Stamp & Walker 2007) reviewed estimates from several sources and conducted a survey of Australian and international anti-money laundering experts to arrive at a figure for 2004.