Search

The most common type of weapon category used in violent crime in Australia is that of knives. There has been widespread community concern about the use of knives in crime, and particularly about young people carrying or using knives. This is in part due to media attention on recent violent incidents involving young people and knives. Some states have already reformed weapon laws to outlaw the carriage of knives in public, and there are plans for making further restrictions, including restricting young persons' ability to purchase knives.

Contents

• Foreword
• Criminological research in perspective
  W. Clifford
• The current status of Australian criminological research
  David Biles

Summaries of papers

• Expanded opportunities for criminological research: crime victims
  Ray Whitrod
• Paradigms of court research
  Roman Tomasic
• Aboriginal young offenders in an isolated community
  Maggie Brady and Rodney Morice
• Legal representation in magistrates courts
  Peter Cashman
• Avoiding delay in magistrates courts
  Edward Sikk

This report is one of three in a suite on this issue by the AIC which also includes Alternative remittance systems in Australia: Perceptions of users and providers and Risks of money laundering and the financing of terrorism arising from alternative remittance systems.

We’re pleased to announce keynote speaker Professor Ethel Quayle will be presenting at the AIC 2025 Conference, which will take place in Canberra on 11-12 March 2025. Professor Quayle will be speaking on Technology-facilitated sexual crimes against children: offenders, victims and environment.

As the recently released government paper on homelessness stated, each night there are about 100,000 homeless Australians, of whom 23 percent are sleeping in temporary accommodation such as boarding houses and another 14 percent are 'sleeping rough', that is, in parks or on the streets. Among this number of homeless people are 10,000 children under the age of 12, over 36,000 young people aged between 12 and 24, and 6,000 people over the age of 65 (Australian Government 2008).

Foreword | The Drug Use Monitoring in Australia (DUMA) program is a crime monitoring program that focuses on illegal drug use amongst police detainees. It involves the collection of self-report and urinalysis data from people detained in police watchhouses, and the timely output of this data to police, policy-makers, criminal justice practitioners and other professionals every three months.

The Embedded Youth Outreach Program today received a gold award in the police-led category of the 2023 Australian Crime and Violence Prevention Awards (ACVPAs).

The ACVPAs recognise best practice in the prevention or reduction of violence and other types of crime in Australia and play a vital role in highlighting effective community-based initiatives to prevent crime and violence before it occurs.

Don’t Let It Be Game Over violence prevention program today received a silver award in the community-led category of the 2021 Australian Crime and Violence Prevention Awards (ACVPA).

The ACVPA recognise best practice in the prevention or reduction of violence and other types of crime in Australia and play a vital role in highlighting effective community-based initiatives to prevent crime and violence.

Foreword | Consumer fraud costs Australians almost $1b a year and most of this fraud involves scams in which individuals are persuaded to part with an upfront, or advance, fee, with the promise of large financial or other gain in the future.

Throughout history, consumers have been targeted by deceptive and misleading practices that have ranged in subtlety and complexity from the barely plausible to the refined and sophisticated. Grabosky, Smith & Dempsey (2001: 105-129) proposed a simple classification of the extensive range of illegal practices perpetrated against consumers, in the traditional marketplace and the electronic environment of the 21st century (Table 1).

The First Nations 'In-Community' Protective Services Officer Program today received a silver award in the police-led category of the 2023 Australian Crime and Violence Prevention Awards (ACVPAs).

The ACVPAs recognise best practice in the prevention or reduction of violence and other types of crime in Australia and play a vital role in highlighting effective community-based initiatives to prevent crime and violence before it occurs.

This paper presents a brief overview of the key diversion programs for Indigenous women currently in operation in Australia, with reference to relevant developments in New Zealand and Canada. It was prepared against the background of recent research on Indigenous women's offending patterns and their over-representation in the criminal justice system (see Bartels 2010), which included the following key findings:

Foreword | Public policy initiatives to redress parental child sexual offenders have been hindered by the absence of an offending profile that characterises this core group of intrafamilial offenders. Drawing on data from a sample of 213 offenders, this study augments knowledge about sex offender typologies by identifying ten key descriptive features of parental offenders.

Project Walwaay today received a silver award in the police-led category of the 2021 Australian Crime and Violence Prevention Awards (ACVPA).

The ACVPA recognise best practice in the prevention or reduction of violence and other types of crime in Australia and play a vital role in highlighting effective community-based initiatives to prevent crime and violence.

Foreword | Investigating missing persons cases is a complex field. There is no single service responsible for the investigation or the provision of support to those who are found, or to the family and friends of missing persons. However, police services across Australia play a crucial role in responding to reports of missing people, complemented by non-government search agencies such as The Salvation Army and the Australian Red Cross.