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The capacity of professionals working in child protection to do their job effectively is affected by their morale, competence and staff turnover. There is growing concern that these professionals are subjected to increasing levels of violence, threats and intimidation. The Australian Institute of Criminology has recently released a report on the key findings from an Australian study into the experiences of violence, threats and intimidation by professional groups working in child protection.

Joint research by the Australian Institute of Criminology and South Australia Police Major Crime Investigation Branch has examined 163 attempted and completed contract killings in Australia between the period 1 July 1989 and 30 June 2002. The research showed that the motive of the instigator varied between attempted and completed contract killings. The most common motive for attempted contract killings was the 'dissolution of a relationship' (n = 28) followed by 'money' (n = 17) and 'silencing of witnesses' (n = 17).

Crime Stoppers Victoria (CSV) commenced in 1987 and is one of over 1 000 Crime Stoppers Programs around the world. These programs provide a mechanism for people to pass information anonymously by telephone to the police. The evaluation included a random telephone survey of 1 008 Victorians in September 2002 and included the following measures: the level of community awareness of the program; media support for the program; participation in the program by the community; relative value of calls to the program; perception of the program by police; and the economic value of the program.

Recorded crime - victims, Australia, a publication from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, presents national crime statistics relating to victims of a selected range of offences that have been recorded by police. In 2003, a decrease in the number of victims was evident for most types of crimes, in particular unlawful entry with intent (UEWI), motor vehicle theft and other theft. Between 2001 and 2003, the number of victims of motor vehicle theft has decreased by 29 per cent, down from a peak of 139 894 victims in 2001 to 98 813 victims in 2003.

Homicide in Australia: 2002-2003 National Homicide Monitoring Program (NHMP) annual report has recently been released from the Australian Institute of Criminology. A total of 297 homicide incidents occurred during the reporting period. These incidents resulted in the death of 324 people, a rate of 1.6 per 100,000 of the population. There were 311 identified homicide offenders in 2002-03. At the time of data collection, 14 per cent (n=42) of incidents were unsolved - incidents where an offender had not yet been identified.

The Australian Institute of Criminology has recently released a paper that explores the type of criminal activity that occurs in marine environments, with a focus on the Great Barrier Reef. The marine environment attracts wide ranging opportunities for illegal activity. These arise from: the availability of natural resources; the availability of illegal drugs for importation; the availability of people wishing to come to Australia and an increase in non-compliance with the introduction of new regulations.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has recently released the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey (NATSISS). The report shows that in 2002, one quarter of Indigenous people reported that they had been a victim of physical or threatened violence in the previous 12 months, nearly double the rate reported in 1994 (13%). The proportion of Indigenous people who had been a victim of physical or threatened violence was similar for people living in remote and non- remote areas (23% compared with 25%) and for men and women (26% compared with 23%).

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has recently released their annual publication on victims of crime. Recorded crime - victims, Australia presents statistics on victims of a selected range of offences recorded by state and territory police. Overall the number of recorded victims for most offence categories declined in 2003 from the previous year, with the total number of robbery victims decreasing slightly from 20 989 in 2002 to 19 719 in 2003.

The NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research has recently released a study examining the sentencing outcomes of offenders charged with drink driving. The study found that while the annual number of drink driving offences has remained stable, the use of dismissals and conditional discharges (for example, good behaviour bond) has increased sharply over the past 10 years (1993-2002). In contrast, the number of drink driving offenders to be convicted/have their licence disqualified has decreased over the same 10-year period.

The Drug use monitoring in Australia (DUMA) annual report 2003 provides an overview of the patterns of drug use and criminal activity amongst police detainees (across seven sites in Australia). Within the questionnaire, detainees are asked a series of questions about their involvement in the local drug market in the past 30 days. Seventy per cent of detainees across all sites self-reported obtaining drugs in the past 30 days - 26 per cent paid cash only for the drugs, 23 per cent obtained the drugs without paying cash, while 52 per cent had used both methods to obtain the drugs.

A recently released report on women's experiences of male violence provides a detailed analysis of the Australian component of the International violence against women survey (IVAWS). The report includes information on women's experiences of physical and sexual violence, as well as the extent and nature of childhood victimisation.

The Australian Institute of Criminology has recently released A typology of online child pornography offending, based on research funded by the Australian High Tech Crime Centre. Knowing the differences in how online child pornography offences are committed is vitally important to understanding and combating the problem of the sexual exploitation of children. There is an increasing seriousness of offending, from offences that do not directly involve a child, to offences that involve direct contact with children, from online grooming to physical abuse.

Findings from the Australian component of the International violence against women survey (IVAWS) have been presented in a report titled Women's experiences of male violence. The report not only outlines information on women as victims of male physical and sexual violence, but also reports on women's experiences of emotional abuse and controlling behaviours by male partners. Results from the analysis of IVAWS found that women who experience controlling behaviours are more likely to experience higher levels of violence.

A recent report, commissioned by the Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy and prepared by the Australian Institute of Criminology, has highlighted a number of important issues associated with drink spiking, including estimates of prevalence, prevention and education strategies and laws governing drink spiking. A range of data was collected on information about victim's experiences. This data found that drink spiking is under-reported to the police, medical agencies and other authorities. Overall, only one quarter of victims who rang into the hotline reported the incident to police.

The Australian Institute of Criminology has released a publication which provides an overview of juveniles in detention in Australia, commencing in 1981 through to 2003. The data provided by each juvenile justice agency contains the number of young people in detention on the last day of each quarter in the year¹. The data indicates there has been a general decline in the number of persons aged 10 to 17 in juvenile detention over this period.