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Foreword | Offenders with complex drug dependencies involving two or more drug types comprise a substantial proportion of drug court and drug diversion clients, yet evaluation studies have demonstrated that these offenders often have poorer retention rates and higher post-program reoffending rates. Poly drug use also has implications for police and law enforcement agencies, as users are potentially a more diversified group whose varied patterns of use makes them more resilient to illicit drug market fluctuations.

Foreword | The disadvantages faced by Indigenous Australians are well-documented and are the focus of determined efforts by government and non-government agencies throughout Australia. Indigenous justice and safety are priority issues for the Council of Australian Governments and law enforcement. The Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) has contributed to work on closing the gap of Indigenous disadvantage by increasing knowledge about justice and community safety issues affecting Indigenous people.

The Drug Use Monitoring in Australia (DUMA) program surveys about 4,000 police detainees annually from sites around Australia about their drug usage. Eighty percent of those surveyed voluntarily provide a urine sample. Ecstasy (MDMA) is a relatively small but increasing component of the drug profile of police detainees. Approximately two percent of those surveyed across all sites in 2007 reported using MDMA in the previous 48 hours. Most drugs that police detainees reported taking corresponded reasonably well with urinalysis results (McGregor & Makkai 2003).

Foreword | Estimating the use of illicit drugs in the general community is an important task with ramifications for law enforcement agencies, as well as health portfolios. Australia has four ongoing drug monitoring systems, including the AIC’s DUMA program, the National Drug Strategy Household Survey, the Illicit Drug Reporting System and the Ecstasy and Related Drug Reporting System. The systems vary in methods, but broadly they are reliant upon self-report data and may be subject to selection biases. The present study employed a completely different method.

Criminal hacking

Foreword | This paper reports the experience of Queensland police in the investigation of predatory behaviour by men seeking sex with children through online chat rooms. It reports on the 25 investigations into online grooming completed by the Queensland Police in the period June 2003 and September 2004 under the code name Task Force Argos, and includes a discussion of three successful prosecutions.

Contents

• Foreword
• Opening address
  Richard Harding

Summaries of papers

• Criminological research in the United Kingdom
  Jacqueline Tombs
• Governmental responses to corporate misconduct - work in progress
  Peter Grabosky and John Braithwaite
• The political economy of corporate regulation: a comparative analysis of offshore oil regulation in Canada and Australia
  Kit Carson
• Commercial extortion
  Gerry McGrath
• Crooked lawyers: some preliminary observations
  Chuck Reasons

Foreword | The Institute's recent work on adult male offenders has found that the most serious and persistent adult offenders had been detained as a juvenile (see Trends & issues no 267). In terms of crime reduction, interventions that focus on reducing the likelihood of juveniles escalating to adult offenders will have significant benefits for the whole of the Australian community.

The following new titles have been added to the growing collection of arson-related literature that can be found in the searchable bibliographic database. In addition to these titles, the database provides access to major bushfire arson news articles.

In Australia, random breath testing (RBT) was introduced in the mid-1970s to detect drivers under the influence of alcohol (Baldock & Woolley 2013). This resulted in a reduction in fatal crashes and alcohol-related traffic accidents across Australia (Drummond, Sullivan & Cavallo 1992; Henstridge, Homel & Mackay 1997; Watson & Freeman 2007). The success of RBT can be explained through the classic deterrence doctrine, which suggests that decision-making is influenced by the perception of whether the benefits of the crime outweigh the risks of being caught (Homel 1988).

The Australian Institute of Criminology has recently released A typology of online child pornography offending, based on research funded by the Australian High Tech Crime Centre. Knowing the differences in how online child pornography offences are committed is vitally important to understanding and combating the problem of the sexual exploitation of children. There is an increasing seriousness of offending, from offences that do not directly involve a child, to offences that involve direct contact with children, from online grooming to physical abuse.

Foreword | Sexual offending against children is a highly emotive issue. It is nonetheless important that public policy initiatives to prevent and/or respond to child sexual abuse are based on the available evidence about child sex offenders.

Contents

• Introduction: Review of Australian criminological research, 1987
  Paul Wilson
• Welcome address
  David Biles

Summaries of papers

• Exploring violence at sporting events: research in Bathurst
  Arthur Veno and Elizabeth Veno
• Victorian occupational health and safety legislation: an examination of law in transition
  Kit Carson
• Crime perception and victimisation of inner city residents
  John Minnery
• Public perception of sentencing in Perth, Western Australia
  David Indermaur

Foreword | Although more than 12,000 offenders are on parole at any given time, little is known about the effectiveness of parole supervision in reducing reoffending. The few studies that have been conducted involve samples of parolees released from prison in other countries. The present study is the first to evaluate the effectiveness of parole supervision in Australia.