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This paper presents an overview of some of the key emerging issues in Australian domestic and family violence (D/FV) research. In particular, the paper considers research in the context of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex (GLBTI) communities; among the elderly; those with disabilities and people from cultural and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds; family violence and Indigenous communities; the relevance of homelessness; the impact of D/FV on children; and issues around perpetrator programs.

Foreword | Legal threshold quantities for drug trafficking, over which possession of an illicit drug is deemed ‘trafficking’ as opposed to ‘personal use’ are used in most Australian states and territories. Yet, in spite of known risks from adopting such thresholds, most notably of unjustified conviction of users as traffickers, the capacity of Australian legal thresholds to deliver proportional sanctioning has been subject to limited research.

Foreword | Cannabis is the most prolifically used illicit drug in Australia, however, there is a gap in our understanding concerning the social interactions and friendships formed around its supply and use.

The authors recruited cannabis users aged between 18 and 30 years throughout Australia, to explore the impact of supply routes on young users and their perceived notions of drug dealing in order to provide valuable insight into the influence that reciprocal relationships have on young people’s access to cannabis.

Foreword | While there is a sizable body of research on intimate partner homicide in general, there has been limited focus on intimate partner homicide involving people in same-sex relationships.

The present study, one of the first of its kind, uses data from the National Homicide Monitoring Program (NHMP) within a context of national and international research to describe what is known about the trends and key characteristics of same-sex intimate partner homicide in Australia.

Foreword |This paper presents an initial analysis of tapes containing confidential and non identifying interviews with ten active and retired Australian police commissioners. The interviews were initiated by the Australian Institute of Criminology in 1999 and were conducted by former Tasmanian police commissioner John Johnston.

Contents

• Introduction
• What is racist violence?
• National inquiry into racist violence
• Information collection
• Size of the problem
• Who are the victims?
• Impact on victims
• What can be done?
• An Aboriginal perspective

Foreword | An examination of firearm related deaths in Australia between 1991 and 2001 found a 47 per cent decrease in numbers, with a fall in the number of suicides accounting for the largest part of that decrease. Nine out of 10 firearm related deaths involved males. Compared to firearm related suicides and accidents where less than 10 per cent involved the death of a female, a higher proportion of homicides involved a female victim (33%). Persons under the age of 15 years were least likely to die as a result of a firearm related injury.

Foreword | Approximately one in four women in most Western nations are at risk of becoming a victim of intimate partner violence (IPV). Interventions for IPV victims have shown to be significant in preventing negative outcomes. Using data from the International Violence Against Women Survey, this paper examines predictors of help-seeking by IPV victims and considers whether such responses are influenced by the severity of abuse experienced.

Australia is one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse nations in the world. Australians identify with over 100 different faiths or religious traditions (Bouma 2006) and over 300 languages are spoken in Australian households (AMF 2013). Although a wide range of backgrounds and beliefs are present within the Australian community, the nation has experienced a relatively peaceful recent history.

Foreword | The number of prisoners in Australian prisons has been increasing over the past decade. In Western Australia the number of female offenders has increased by 40 percent over the past five years. One contributing factor to this increase may be the re incarceration of parolees who have violated parole.

This research used the publicly available decision documents from the Prisoners Review Board in Western Australia to investigate the background details of offences, and the details of the parole violations of 41 women released in 2013–14.

Foreword | Wadeye is one of the largest Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory. Over the past decade, the community has attracted much negative media attention because of the amount of violence that has occurred. This violence has often been portrayed as the result of gang activity.

This paper examines how gangs operate in the Wadeye community and provides some insight into the perceptions of gang members on their relationships with community authority structures and family support mechanisms.

Foreword | This paper presents a summary of findings from a report to the Criminology Research Council on the experiences of child complainants of sexual abuse in the criminal justice system in three Australian jurisdictions: Queensland, New South Wales and Western Australia. The aim of the research was to investigate the processes surrounding, and the consequences of involvement in, the criminal justice system from the perspective of the child complainant.

Foreword | This paper examines the extent to which participants in the Drug Use Monitoring in Australia (DUMA) program under-report their drug use. DUMA participants are asked to answer a questionnaire about their use of drugs, as well as to supply a urine sample. This sample is tested for the presence of illicit drugs and compared with the self-reported answers in the questionnaire.