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Community policing is a term firmly ensconced in the lexicon of Australian policing. But what exactly is it? Although a phrase commonly used within both the criminal justice system and the public domain, it remains many things to many people. This paper examines the origins and central tenants of community policing and identifies pertinent issues for consideration regarding the future of community policing as a mechanism for crime control.

Foreword | As part of their community-oriented policing strategy, the Queensland police service has implemented 49 police beat shopfronts in shopping centres and central business districts across Queensland. While several evaluations of police beats have previously been conducted, findings on the effectiveness of police shopfronts in reducing crime have not been conclusive. It is argued that a reliance on changes in official reporting to police may not be an adequate measure of the impact of police shopfronts on crime.

Foreword | As police are often the first point of contact in domestic and family violence incidents they are in a unique position to respond to, intervene in, and be proactive about, preventing family violence. With indications that the volume of recorded violence has increased and the complexity of family violence matters has increased police workloads, police face many challenges in responding in an effective and timely manner to reported incidents.

Foreword | This paper is timely, given that policing is currently going through a period of significant change in both operational tactics and organisational structures. New ideas in crime reduction and changes to short- and long-term policing strategies are underway. Intelligence-led policing represents a recent approach and is one of the more prevalent of the current "shifts in crime control philosophy and policing practice" (Maguire 2000).

Foreword | Few well designed evaluations have found strong support for neighbourhood watch (NW) schemes; in fact there have been no formal, published, peer reviewed evaluations of NW in Australia. This paper argues for a change in focus in what is examined to determine success. Overseas evaluations suggest such schemes are ineffective because they looked at whether NW prevented and reduced the fear of crime, and improved information flows between the community and the police.

Introduction

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.

Foreword | At 30 June 2006, 23 percent of Australian police were women, almost double the percentage in 1996. Despite this change, the issues relevant a decade earlier remain today, namely difficulties in recruitment and deployment and the low representation of women within senior ranks. This paper examines the career paths of one cohort of police sworn in during 1991 in a number of jurisdictions, to examine what differences, if any, exist between the male and female personnel in terms of recruitment, rank attainment, departures and deployment.

A Victorian study run over three years found that a community policing framework is essential to counter-terrorism policing (Pickering et al. 2007). This finding was based on consultations with both police and culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities, as CALD communities are often the focus of counter-terrorism strategies. The study found many challenges in engaging with CALD communities (AICrime reduction matters no. 68), and emphasised the need to build on existing practices and community networks.

Foreword | As part of the Australian Institute of Criminology's commitment to building
an evidence base on the effects of Australian policing initiatives this paper
explores the impact of a targeted policing operation to reduce property crime.
By comparing property crime data for the ACT and surrounding areas of NSW, the
paper finds no evidence for displacement, either spatially or by crime type
following a significant burglary reduction strategy conducted in the ACT in

As Indigenous Australians constitute a small minority of the total Australian population, only very large scale or specially designed surveys will elicit large enough samples to produce robust estimates of the prevalence of illicit drug use. As a result there are only general indicators suggesting that Indigenous Australians use illicit drugs at a higher rate than the general population. The most recent national household drug use survey showed that 27 percent of Indigenous people had used illicit drugs in the previous 12 months, almost double the rate for rest of the population (15%).

Methamphetamine is of national concern (ACC 2014), but what does this statement mean to frontline police officers? In real terms it means that frontline police are required, on an increasingly frequent basis, to engage with methamphetamine users. This presents a number of challenges to police. First, methamphetamine intoxication and withdrawal can impede an individual’s ability to follow police directions. Second, use is associated with behavioural and psychological disturbances, including aggression, which can increase the risk of harm for the police and members of the community.

Foreword | The benefits associated with focusing strategies and interventions on family violence offenders early in their offending careers are well established. Yet accurately identifying first-time family violence perpetrators is difficult because of the high under-reporting of family violence. This study involved the analysis of police narratives completed for first-time family violence perpetrators, as identified through police offence records to determine their accuracy in identifying first-time family violence offenders.

Key findings

• The Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) interviewed 816 detainees about their personal experience of victimisation and fear of victimisation for three crime types—physical assault, burglary and motor vehicle theft—as part of the Drug Use Monitoring in Australia (DUMA) program. This is the first study of its kind in Australia to compare rates of victimisation and fear of victimisation between a sample of police detainees and the general population.

Foreword | Across the spectrum of operational policing activities, one situation that poses a degree of risk to community safety is when an alleged offender chooses to flee in a vehicle. In the worst case, the offender, police members or other bystanders may be injured or killed. Every motor vehicle pursuit that ends in a death is a tragedy and one that impacts not only on the families and friends of the deceased, but also on the police members involved in the incident.