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Contents

• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• Executive summary
• Introduction
• Background
• Methods
• Findings
• Discussion
• References

Foreword | The link between the use of alcohol, other drugs and crime continues to be a concern in communities throughout Australia. In regional Western Australia, little is known about the patterns of substance use and crime. In an attempt to better understand a regional offending population and their alcohol and drug use, the Australian Institute of Criminology’s Drug Use Monitoring in Australia (DUMA) project was utilised to collect such data in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.

Contents

• Participants
• Introduction

Part I

• Opening ceremony
• Opening address
  
  W. Clifford

Summaries of plenary sessions

• Agenda item I - Trends and problems
• Agenda item II - Alternatives to imprisonment and effects on prison management
• Agenda item III - Management services
• Agenda item IV - Sixth U.N. Congress - Implications for Asia and the Pacific
• Conclusions and resolutions

Part II. Papers by participating delegations

Australia

Foreword | Sometimes criminal justice authorities may wish to control or to monitor the location of an individual without resorting to imprisonment. For example, before a criminal trial, police may want to ensure that the defendant stays in town or stays away from the complainant. After conviction, a judge may wish to place limits on an offender's freedom while not employing a full-time custodial sanction. Upon release from prison, a parole board may want to impose restrictions on an offender.

Introduction

Foreword | Confidence in the criminal justice system has emerged as a critical issue at the interface of the administration of justice and political pressures in western democracies. For more than a decade, governments in the West have felt acute pressure to make the criminal justice system more relevant, more transparent and more accountable. The 'crisis of confidence', particularly in judges and sentencing, has led to a range of high profile policy announcements seeking to 'modernise' the criminal justice system.

Foreword | Theories on the causal relationship between drug use and crime in Australian literature have often overlooked the influence of gender as a confounding variable. However, research indicates that pathways into drug use and crime differ for males and females. Using data from the Australian Institute of Criminology's Drug Use Monitoring in Australia program, this study explores the relationship between drug use, offending, mental health and experiences of child abuse among a sample of police detainees.

Foreword | The Australian Institute of Criminology is undertaking research on the drug use careers of adult males, females and juveniles incarcerated in Australian prisons. The objective of the Drug use careers of offenders (DUCO) female study is to contribute to the empirical evidence about the interaction between drug use and criminal offending among incarcerated women. The results of the DUCO male study were released in 2003 and the results of the DUCO juvenile study are expected in 2005.

The Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) has released an Issues paper raising a series of questions about the sentencing and management of offenders convicted of federal criminal offences. The Issues paper analyses the limited data available regarding federal offenders. More than 4,000 persons are convicted of federal offences each year, the bulk of these being summary social security offences. There are no available data on the sentencing outcomes for all federal offenders, but as at 1 January 2005 there were 687 federal offenders in state and territory prisons.

Foreword | It is generally accepted that a person’s living situation, in particular their experience of homelessness and housing stress, can have both long-lasting and wide-ranging consequences. For criminal justice practitioners, the task of limiting homelessness and preventing crime remain key policy priorities in need of ongoing and integrated research.

Foreword | This paper reports findings from statistical analyses of Indigeneity and lower court sentencing in New South Wales and South Australia from 1998 to 2008. The aim was to explore the probability of Indigenous versus non-Indigenous defendants receiving a prison sentence over time, while controlling for other key sentencing determinates (ie sex, age, criminal history, seriousness of current offence, plea, bail status).

Contents

• Acknowledgements
• Acronyms and abbreviations
• Abstract
• Introduction
  • Definitions of a death in custody
  • Data collection
  • Limitations
• Deaths in custody 2021–22
  • Deaths in prison custody
  • Deaths in police custody and custody-related operations
• Indigenous deaths in custody 2021–22
  • Indigenous deaths in prison custody
  • Indigenous deaths in police custody and custody-related operations
• Non-Indigenous deaths in custody 2021–22

Contents

• Acknowledgements
• Acronyms and abbreviations
• Abstract
• Introduction
  • Definition of a death in custody
  • Data collection
  • Scope
  • Presentation of data
  • Considerations
  • Changes from previous report
• Deaths in custody 2024–25
  • Deaths in prison custody
  • Deaths in police custody and custody-related operations
• Indigenous deaths in custody 2024–25
  • Indigenous deaths in prison custody