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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.

Purpose

This policy sets out how personal information held by the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) is managed and protected in compliance with the Commonwealth Privacy Act 1988 (Privacy Act) and the Australian Privacy Principles.

This policy sets out how we collect, use, disclose and store personal information, including sensitive information, and how you may access and correct personal information that we hold.

The most common type of weapon category used in violent crime in Australia is that of knives. There has been widespread community concern about the use of knives in crime, and particularly about young people carrying or using knives. This is in part due to media attention on recent violent incidents involving young people and knives. Some states have already reformed weapon laws to outlaw the carriage of knives in public, and there are plans for making further restrictions, including restricting young persons' ability to purchase knives.

Foreword | Children's 'witnessing' or exposure to domestic violence has been increasingly recognised as a form of child abuse, both in Australia and internationally. Although it is difficult to accurately assess the scope of the problem, research has demonstrated that a substantial amount of domestic violence is witnessed by children. As this paper outlines, witnessing domestic violence can involve a range of incidents, ranging from the child 'only' hearing the violence, to the child being forced to participate in the violence or being used as part of a violent incident.

On 1 November 2022, 9 projects were recognised for their contribution to the prevention of crime and violence in Australian communities.

The winners were presented with their awards at a ceremony in Canberra by the Hon Dr Andrew Leigh MP, Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury.

Joint release by the Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety Limited (ANROWS), Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC), and the Australian Institute of Family Studies.

With about seventy women killed by their partners or ex-partners each year, killing an intimate partner is the most common form of homicide in Australia.

Alarmingly, 2020 may well see that number rise, as self-isolation measures designed to contain COVID-19 are likely to exacerbate abuse and violence against women and their children.

Foreword | Community justice programs such as the Red Hook Court in New York and the Neighbourhood Justice Centre in the City of Yarra in Melbourne represent an innovative approach to a range of crime and safety issues by engaging the community in identifying problems and generating solutions. However, as with many small-scale or specialist court programs, community courts have found it difficult to provide robust outcome evaluation data to demonstrate their effectiveness.

Foreword | Public policy initiatives to redress parental child sexual offenders have been hindered by the absence of an offending profile that characterises this core group of intrafamilial offenders. Drawing on data from a sample of 213 offenders, this study augments knowledge about sex offender typologies by identifying ten key descriptive features of parental offenders.

Foreword | In Australia 'open-street' or 'town centre' CCTV refers to visual surveillance systems established in the main by local government authorities in cooperation with police to monitor public spaces such as malls and major thoroughfares. This paper is therefore not concerned with other uses of CCTV such as its deployment on public transport networks, within privately regulated commercial spaces such as casinos and shopping malls, or in retail outlets.

Between 43 and 49 percent of fires attended by fire agencies annually in Australia occur in vegetation (SCRGS 2006). Analysis by the AIC of fire agency data from across Australia indicates that vegetation fires are a large problem in urban environments. For example, in NSW where fire services are most clearly delineated between urban, rural and land management agencies:

Foreword | The prevention of assault has been a high-profile, long-term concern for government and police agencies. However, while the nature and impacts of certain types of physical violence, such as domestic or sexual assault, have been extensively studied, this is not the case for more traditional forms of physical assault. Understanding the needs of victims of physical assault, particularly in an Australian context, is important in order to ensure that services are adequately able to address these victims’ needs.

Foreword | Knowledge about sexual violence against women from Indigenous and culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds is scant. Anecdotally, levels of sexual violence are purported to be high, but national victimisation surveys may not capture, or may misrepresent, the extent of sexual violence in these communities.

Foreword | To date, research on stalking has focused almost exclusively on adults. This paper examines the nature of stalking among adolescents to determine the characteristics of stalkers and their victims and the utility of intervention orders for managing this behaviour. Its findings indicate that a majority of perpetrators are male and almost all victims know their stalker, with prior relationships including ex-school peers, family members, ex-intimate partners and former friends.

Foreword | Public policy initiatives to manage parental child sexual offending have been hindered by the absence of risk instruments sensitive to unique factors associated with the distinctive profile of this core group of offenders. Using an Australian sample of 172 male parental offenders referred to community-based treatment designed for low-risk offenders, this study retrospectively compared risk levels and reoffence rates of offenders accepted into treatment (46%) with those who returned to court for standard criminal prosecution (54%).