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A roundtable was recently held in Victoria to develop strategies to curb antisocial behaviour, with a focus on violence and public safety—particularly alcohol-related incidents. Attendees included academics, police, health professionals, representatives from the justice system and the co-founder of a violence prevention initiative.

The Personal Safety Survey (PSS) was a national survey of people aged 18 or older conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 2005, following the Women's Safety Survey (WSS) carried out in 1996. The content of the two surveys was kept largely consistent, although the WSS included approximately 6,300 female respondents while the PSS sampled approximately 11,800 females and 4,500 males.

The general motivation for this report was to provide the background for a submission by the Federal Office of Road Safety (FORS) on the effectiveness of the enforcement of traffic law to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Transport Safety (HORSCOTS). This report though has been substantially modified from the original submission to FORS and represents the views of the authors and not necessarily the views of the Federal Office of Road Safety.

Foreword | Closed circuit television‘s (CCTV) popularity as a solution to local crime problems continues to gain traction. Its broad community support and visibility as a tangible response to crime problems suggests that the demand for CCTV is unlikely to abate. However, many agencies have difficulty locating information on the practical considerations for implementing a CCTV system and only become aware of the real cost of CCTV after installing the system. Therefore, measures need to be taken to ensure knowledge of good practice in CCTV implementation is shared.

Like any Australians, older people are concerned about their safety. Australia's older population is growing rapidly, with one-quarter of the population projected to be over 65 years by the middle of the century. However, while it is a fact that older people are less at risk of criminal victimisation than other age groups, they tend to have a higher fear of crime than the general population.

Has violence in the workplace increased? Some sectors of the community believe that it has. Certainly the headlines on this page illustrate the justifiable anxieties of some of our public contact workers. Many public transport workers have been verbally or physically abused by the travelling public. For example, earlier this year a Canberra bus driver suffered a heart attack and died following an altercation with a man who refused to pay a bus fare. Banking staff have to cope with irate, aggressive customers as well as the prospect of facing a professional, violent criminal.

Contents

• Introduction
• The ageing of the Australian population
• Crime prevention in theory
• Crime prevention in practice
• Fear reduction
• Elder abuse
• Older people as the focus of policy attention

Foreword | International surveys have suggested that around one-third of all adult women will, at some point in their lifetime, experience abuse perpetrated by an intimate male partner. Domestic violence is considered to be one of the major risk factors affecting women’s health in Australia and there is a need for the community to respond in ways that reduce the likelihood of further violence occurring. One way of doing this is to deliver programs that aim to reduce the risk of known perpetrators committing further offences.

Foreword | A range of criminal activity takes place in marine environments. Combating this crime is a challenge for state, national and international regulators. The illicit activity can include illegal fishing, unauthorised hunting of protected species, causing damage to coral reefs, polluting, people smuggling, drug trafficking, and the commission of personal crimes (including violence). The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (GBRMP) is renowned as the world's largest living organism.

Foreword | Project STOP, an online database in which pharmacists record sales of pseudoephedrine (PSE)-based medication, was implemented in 2005 to aid in reducing the diversion of PSE-based products for use as precursors in the domestic manufacture of methamphetamine. Australian evaluations of regulations governing the sale of PSE-based medications and the impact of Project STOP have so far been limited. This research explores the impact of the mandatory recording of PSE-based medication sales on PSE diversion and clan lab detection in Queensland.

Foreword | Arson is a crime that is often committed by young people. An important strategy for preventing deliberate firesetting is intervention with young people who show an unhealthy interest in fire. Fire services in all Australian jurisdictions conduct juvenile arson intervention programs for such young people. These programs are usually run by specially trained firefighters, are carried out in the home of the young person with the involvement of the parents, and focus on the young person's behaviour and their family environment.

What is domestic violence?

Foreword | Violence, threats and intimidation confront many professionals working in the area of child protection. While there has been increased international concern about this topic, there has been no previous Australian investigation that documented the incidence and effects of these issues across the range of child protection workers. The research described in this paper is the first of its kind in Australia.

What is antisocial behaviour?

Foreword | Violent crime statistics drawn from police data do not show the large amount of violent crime and victimisation that is never disclosed to police. Within this ‘dark figure of crime’ are human experiences that can leave victims without help and support, perpetrators not coming to justice and cycles of violence continuing unbroken. This paper explores some of the reasons for the high rates of non-disclosure of violence in Indigenous communities.