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Foreword | Fraud is Australia’s most costly form of crime with the Australian Institute of Criminology estimating that in excess of $8.5b was lost to fraud in 2005 (Rollings 2008). Consumer fraud alone has been found to cost Australians almost $1b each year (ABS 2008c). Most types of consumer fraud entail the use of so-called ‘advance fee’ techniques in which individuals are tricked into paying money—an ‘advance fee’—upfront in order to secure an anticipated financial or other benefit at a later date.

Foreword | Compared with large organisations, small businesses operate in a distinct and highly resource-constrained operating and technical environment. Their proprietors are often time poor, have minimal bargaining power and have limited financial, technical, legal and personnel resources. It is therefore unsurprising that cloud computing and its promise of smoothing cash flows and dramatically reducing ICT overheads is attractive to small business.

Foreword | There is emerging evidence that the Pacific Island region is vulnerable to the crime of trafficking in persons. Using information from a range of Pacific Island stakeholder forums and consultations conducted by the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC), together with a review of the literature, key issues relevant to trafficking in persons in the Pacific Islands region are identified in this paper.

Foreword | This paper examines the evidence that would enable judgement of what is likely to happen to the incidence of fraud in the context of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), whether as a result of the crisis or of other factors that coincide with it. Normally, statistical data on crime and/or cost of crime trends is examined to enable determination of whether a problem is getting better or worse.

Online and cloud computing services are increasingly prevalent to the point where, for many people, they are integral to communication in their daily lives. From a criminal justice perspective, this makes them key sources of evidence for prosecuting both traditional and online crime (Quick, Martini & Choo 2014). However, the successful prosecution of individuals who commit crimes involving electronic evidence relies upon two major factors.

The Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) is hosting the AIC 2023 conference on Monday 16 October 2023, commemorating 50 years since the establishment of the AIC.

The annual Australian Crime and Violence Prevention (ACVP) Awards were announced on 10 November 2005. The awards are sponsored by the heads of Australian governments and the members of the Australian and New Zealand Crime Prevention Ministerial Forum as a joint Commonwealth, State and Territory initiative. They recognise and reward outstanding projects that prevent or reduce violence in Australia, to encourage public initiatives and assist governments to identify and develop projects to reduce violence in the community.

Foreword | As our use of information and communication technologies increases and evolves, incidents of technology-enabled crime are likely to continue. Based on what we know today, this paper summarises a range of potential challenges that regulators and law enforcement agencies need to bear in mind.

Proceedings of a conference held 24-26 July 1990

Contents

• Unlived lives: trends in youth suicide
  Riaz Hassan
• Youth suicide in New South Wales: urban-rural trends 1964-88
  Michael Dudley, Brent Waters, Norm Kelk and John Howard
• Trends in youth suicide in Tasmania: a comparison between youth and other suicide
  Janet Haines, Elaine Hart, Chris Williams, John Davidson and Walter Slaghuis
• The prediction of suicide
  Robert Goldney
• An approach to the issue of youth suicide and attempted suicide in Western Australia

Foreword | Restorative justice conferencing for young offenders is a legislated response to youth offending, which has been in place in all Australian states and territories for nearly two decades. Restorative justice conferences are meetings between young offenders, their victims and supporters to discuss the offence, its impact and what the young person can do to repair harms caused by the offending behaviour.

Foreword | The use of fire in homicide can involve a fire as a direct weapon to commit homicide, or to conceal homicide. It can involve the additional crime of arson, the act of deliberately setting fire to property. Analysis shows that, while homicide trends over this period have declined, the proportion of fire-associated homicides has increased significantly; a trend which has also been observed overseas. This paper examines the involvement of fire, either directly or indirectly, in the commission of homicide in Australia.

Personal security in public places has become an area of increasing concern to governments in the past 10 years in Australia and overseas. One response has been a significant increase in the use of closed circuit television (CCTV) in densely populated areas such as central business districts and entertainment districts. CCTV is employed as a surveillance measure in such areas to monitor behaviour of individuals and in public spaces as a deterrent and opportunity reduction measure (see AIC 2006).

The AIC has recently undertaken research investigating the use of fire in homicides in Australia. The National Homicide Monitoring Program database, containing data on all homicides known to police in Australia between 1989-90 and 2004-05, was used to identify the 100 homicide incidents where fire was responsible for the death, or the death was recorded as occurring in association with the arson.

The use of geographic information systems (GIS) has emerged as one of the most important developments in crime analysis and investigation in recent years. By combining geographic principles and geocoded (spatial) location data with crime data and criminological theories, GIS allow the analysis of crime incidents across time and space. Crime maps developed using GIS have typically been used for hot spot mapping at a local or jurisdiction level, such as to determine policing priorities and allocate crime prevention resources (Weir & Bangs 2007).