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Foreword | To date, Australia has been relatively quarantined from large-scale, organised terrorist activities such as those which have emerged in central and southeast Asia, Europe and the United States. Nonetheless, as a well-resourced country, Australia is at risk of being a location from which funds for terrorist activities may be drawn—even if the activities themselves are based predominantly in other countries.

Foreword | It is well-documented that crime rates and the prevalence of mental illness are both higher in areas with pronounced levels of social disorganisation. Far less is known about the association of disadvantaged community conditions with criminal behaviour and mental illness.

Foreword | In their Trends and Issues paper, "Red Flags of Fraud", Grabosky and Duffield (2001) identified a number of warning signals for fraud, or anomalies. While the existence of anomalies is not always indicative of criminality, they do signify heightened risks that should be investigated further.

Foreword | Although there are no national data on youth gangs in Australia there is a perception that youth gangs are an emerging problem. This paper draws largely on overseas attempts to deal with gang related activity and the extent to which they have been successful. The most successful interventions have some combination of coercive and developmental measures. A key issue for both policy makers and practitioners is the weight given to particular measures within the context of an overall strategy.

End of school events, such as Schoolies Week, can attract large groups of unsupervised young people and are often accompanied by an increase in antisocial behaviour in an area (OCP 2007). When individuals, particularly young people, congregate, it is often a concern for members of the community and the prevention of group violence can pose policing and management challenges (White 2006). Strategies to reduce group misbehaviour for organised events include:

Identity-related fraud is a growing concern in Australia. Today it is possible for someone to obtain a range of identifying documents and/or information through fraud, deception or theft. Completely false documents can also be created using stolen personal information. These documents can then be misused in order to profit at our expense. For example, bank account details, date of birth and tax file numbers can be used to take funds out of bank accounts or fraudulently apply for loans.

Proceedings of a symposium held 21-26 August 1994, Adelaide

Contents

• Preface
• About the editors
• Contributors
• Introduction: president's opening address
  Chris Sumner, formerly President of the World Society of Victimology; and Member of the National Native Title Tribunal, Australia

Section 1: Power, politics and victimisation

• Section overview
  Mark Israel, Department of Legal Studies, Flinders University, South Australia
• Paradigms and paradoxes of victimology

The events of 11 September 2001 have heightened interest in ensuring that all sectors of the financial system are not misused either by criminal or terrorist groups. In addition to conventional banks, money and value can be transferred by alternative remittance providers who have, until recently, not been closely regulated. Regulators are concerned that the informal nature of these businesses may lead to their use by terrorist groups and other criminals.

Wilderness programs that include adventure activities and 'boot camps' involving military-like discipline are often promoted as effective crime prevention measures for young people in contact with the justice system or those at risk of criminal involvement. However, research reviews show mixed results for such programs.

Foreword | Arson homicides are rare, representing only two percent of all homicides in Australia each year. In this study, data was collected from the AIC’s National Homicide Monitoring Program (NHMP) to build on previous research undertaken into arson-associated homicides (Davies & Mouzos 2007) and to provide more detailed analysis of cases and offenders.

Foreword | In the past decade, there has been an increasing reliance on electronic means of transferring funds for personal and business purposes. One recent development has been the emergence of plastic cards with the capacity to store value electronically, which can be used for a range of retail transactions. With the advent of comprehensive anti-money laundering laws throughout the developed world, criminals are turning to alternative ways of moving funds across borders to circumvent reporting and detection systems.

For the purposes of this analysis, the market in illicit antiquities might usefully be split into three stages: the supply of antiquities emanating from source nations, the demand created by consumers in market nations, and the chain of transportation which links the two. By considering these "divisions of labour", targeted solutions to the problem may be easier to identify than if the market as a whole is considered. This paper deals only with the supply and demand stages; the transport networks which move illicit goods are discussed in an earlier paper in this series (Mackenzie 2002).

Children and ICT

The uptake of information and communication technologies (ICT) has led to new criminal activities and new ways of committing traditional crimes. This is the first in a series of high tech crime briefs looking at the impact of ICT on criminal activities. High tech or ICT-related crime is divided into offences where ICT is the object or target of an offence and where ICT is a tool for committing an offence.

Online and cloud computing services are increasingly prevalent to the point where, for many people, they are integral to communication in their daily lives. From a criminal justice perspective, this makes them key sources of evidence for prosecuting both traditional and online crime (Quick, Martini & Choo 2014). However, the successful prosecution of individuals who commit crimes involving electronic evidence relies upon two major factors.

Foreword | The use of private security in crime prevention and law enforcement activities has grown to a point where security personnel outnumber police by more than two-to-one. This paper examines the size and scope of the security industry both locally and internationally. Using ABS census data, it provides a detailed and up-to-date picture of the security industry and makes key comparisons with police. Findings show that in Australia in 2006, there were 52,768 personnel employed full-time in the security industry, compared with 44,898 police.