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The Australian Institute of Criminology prepared a statistical overview for the Australian Law Reform Commission inquiry into federal offenders (Australian Law Reform Commission 2005). According to data held by the Attorney-General's Department there were 695 federal prisoners on 13 December 2004. The federal sentencing data record only the most serious federal offence for an offender; in reality they may also have been sentenced on state/territory offences.

The Drug Use Careers of Offenders (DUCO) study conducted by the Australian Institute of Criminology collected information on the lifetime offending and substance use patterns of 371 juveniles incarcerated in Australian detention centres. The project, which was funded by the Australian Government Attorney-General's Department, asked the juveniles to report their lifetime experiences of neglect and abuse. Violent abuse was most frequently reported (36%) followed by emotional abuse (27%) and neglect (18%).

A smaller total increase in the prison population and stability in the imprisonment rate over the 12 months to June 2006 indicate a slowing of the adult imprisonment rate in Australia. The Australian Institute of Criminology's Australian crime: facts and figures uses Australian Bureau of Statistics data to show the rate of adult imprisonment in Australia by sentenced and remanded prisoners. The overall imprisonment rate at 30 June 2006 was 163 prisoners per 100,000 adult population.

In 2000 the Northern Territory recorded its lowest homicide victimisation rate (3.06 per 100,000 people) since 1989. A Trends and Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice paper, "Homicide in Australia 1999-2000" provides a statistical snapshot of police recorded homicides in the last year, as well as information on trends over the last 11 years and jurisdictional comparisons. Trends show that the homicide rate for Australia has stayed remarkably constant. The highest rate recorded over the last 11 years was 2 per 100,000 and the lowest rate was 1.7 per 100,000.

A report released by the Australian Institute of Criminology, "Solvability Factors of Homicide in Australia: An Exploratory Analysis", has identified some of the main differences between solved and unsolved homicides.

Figures released by the Australian Institute of Criminology show the risk of being a victim of consumer fraud is much lower for older Australians than it is for the population as a whole. Those aged 65 years and over are less than half as likely to be victims of consumer fraud compared to people aged 16 to 64. Data from the Australian Crime Victims Survey found that nine per cent of persons aged 16 to 64 were the victims of consumer fraud compared to four per cent of people aged over 65.

A report released by the Australian Institute of Criminology, "Robbery Against Service Stations and Pharmacies: Recent Trends" has identified service stations as being at increasing risk of robbery compared with other commercial targets. Based on ABS data, it was found that robberies against service stations increased by 214 per cent between 1993 and 2000, compared with 65 per cent for pharmacies and 37 per cent for banks.

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The AIC was established in 1973 under the Criminology Research Act 1971 (Cwlth).

As a Commonwealth statutory authority, the AIC also has responsibilities under the Public Service Act 1999 (Cwlth) and the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 (Cwlth).

The Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission has been appointed the Director (Chief Executive) of the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC).

The AIC employs researchers from a range of disciplines to undertake research and maintain statistical collections on a range of priorities issues, as guided by the Criminology Research Advisory Council.

The Grants Management team administers the Criminology Research Grants and the Australian Crime and Violence Prevention Awards.

The Criminology Research Act 1971 (Cwth) provides that the Criminology Research Advisory Council is to consist of nine members, comprising a representative of the Commonwealth and of each state and territory. The Council is responsible for providing advice to the Director of the AIC on strategic priorities for research and priorities for communicating research results.

Council members

The Criminology Research Advisory Council is made up of the following members:

The Australian Institute of Criminology's podcast series. In this series, we want to share with you some of the latest research on a range of contemporary crime and justice issues affecting Australia. We'll talk about some of the research we’re doing at the Institute, but also explore some of the research we’re funding our academic partners to undertake in universities across Australia. Subscribe on your favourite podcasting platform, episode 1 goes live 18 February 2021: https://crimpod.buzzsprout.com/.

Our YouTube channel, CriminologyTV has a range of videos by specialists on issues such as consumer fraud, the needs of victims of crime, juvenile justice and deaths in custody. It also includes keynote presentations from a range of AIC conferences. The most recent videos are below or to see all of our videos go to Criminology TV.