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In 2003 the Australian Institute of Criminology randomly surveyed 1,078 small businesses across Australia in five business types (florists, computer retailers, booksellers, recorded music retailers and toy and game retailers) to identify the proportion of these businesses trading online, the extent to which online traders had experienced online credit card fraud in 2001 and 2002, and the losses associated with such fraud. Overall, 32 per cent of businesses had been the victim of online credit card fraud, with 51 per cent of traders experiencing more than one incident over the two years.

In Australia and overseas there exists a paucity of research on deaths in custody where women are the primary focus of study; most of the literature in this area treats women as a subset of the primary focus - men. It has been suggested that this lack of information about women dying in custody is due to the relatively small number of female deaths when compared with the number of male deaths. Indeed, Scraton and Chadwick (1995, p. 89) comment that:

Foreword | Although the number of identified cases of trafficking into Australia is relatively low, the hidden nature of this crime and reluctance of trafficked persons to report to authorities suggests that a number of cases may go unidentified and the problem may be more extensive than available data indicates. Much can be learned about the risks of exploitation, including trafficking, from an overview of undocumented movement throughout the region.

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.

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.

Foreword | The Australian Institute of Criminology was funded by the Australian Crime Commission to undertake research that could inform and complement the work of the National Indigenous Violence and Child Abuse Intelligence Task Force. It was important, given the plethora of government inquiries and initiatives in recent times, to initially review and assess the evidence of victimisation of, and offending by, Indigenous people. The first summary of this evidence on risk factors associated with Indigenous victimisation was released last year.

On the 14 November 1994, the Senate agreed to a motion by Senator Harradine requiring all Australian Government departments and agencies produce an indexed list of files every six months for tabling before parliament. The production of the list is intended to make the operations of government more transparent to the Australian public.

Link to full report (RPP 90): Reintegration of Indigenous prisoners

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 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.

Foreword | This paper investigates self-reported prevalence, patterns and potential harms of benzodiazepine use in a sample of adult police detainees, using data from the Drug Use Monitoring in Australia (DUMA) program for the period 1999 to 2005. Of the sample, 15% had used illegal benzodiazepines in the previous 12 months, and around 13% had used prescribed benzodiazepines in the previous fortnight. The extent of self-reported benzodiazepine dependence was much lower than that for heroin, and similar to that for amphetamines.

Foreword | The true extent of people trafficking is difficult to gauge, in part because of low levels of reporting and identification of trafficked persons, the clandestine nature of the crime, and a lack of reliable data and systematic data collections, The data collected by the International Organization for Migration in its Counter Trafficking Module Database is unique in the breadth and depth of information collected regarding the experiences of trafficked persons.

Abstract

This project was funded by the Crime Prevention Branch of the Criminal Justice Division, Commonwealth Attorney-General's Department.