Today the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC), in partnership with the Attorney-General the Hon Mark Dreyfus KC MP and state and territory police commissioners will celebrate the Australian Crime and Violence Prevention Awards (ACVPA).
The ACVPA recognise best practice in the prevention or reduction of violence and other types of crime in Australia and play a vital role in highlighting effective community-based initiatives to prevent crime and violence before it actually occurs.
AIC Director Heather Cook said the ACVPA encourage the implementation of effective, innovative and efficient crime prevention programs, significantly contributing to making Australia safer.
“This year we received 50 nominations from police and community-led projects across the country and are delighted to be awarding 9 outstanding projects.
This is an incredible honour, and all the winners should be extremely proud of their achievements. Congratulations and thank you for your valuable service to your communities,” Ms Cook said.
Gold award winners
The Queensland Department of Youth Justice’s Intensive Case Management Program is a community-led, evidence-based program designed to reduce youth offending. It provides an integrated framework to work intensively with young people assessed as having a high or very high risk of reoffending, as well as with their family and support network to address the causes of chronic offending and build their capacity to lead a good life. The model uses comprehensive offence profiling and mapping and coordinated stakeholder collaboration to achieve sustainable behavioural change with families.
Victoria Police’s Public Transport Notification Project STOPIT works to provide victims of sexual harassment on Victorian public transport with the means and confidence to notify Victoria Police of this behaviour – incidents which are significantly under-reported. This enables police to apprehend offenders and prevent offences, improving public safety.
Silver award winners
The Salvation Army’s Alexis Family Violence Response Model aims to reduce family violence for victim-survivors and to achieve accountability among perpetrators. Through interagency cooperation and collaboration, this model seeks to reduce secondary victimisation and decrease the incidence of family violence. This is achieved by providing a coordinated cross-sector, multi-agency response to families who are assessed as high risk and who have repeated contact with police and support services due to family violence.
Griffith University’s Pathways to Prevention Project is based in a disadvantaged, high‑crime region of Brisbane. This program operated as a research–practice partnership involving families, state preschools and primary schools, and community agency Mission Australia. It focused on the development of oral language and communication skills for 4‑year-olds in 2002–03 and saw the reduction of court-adjudicated youth crime among participating children by age 17.
Victoria Police’s Youth Crime Prevention and Early Intervention Project is a joint initiative led by Victoria Police in partnership with West Justice, Victoria Legal Aid, the Youth Support and Advocacy Service, the Centre for Multicultural Youth, and Youth Now. It aims to reduce the rate of offending and reoffending among children and young people by supporting police to issue warnings, cautions, and fast-tracked diversion, and on improving referrals for children and young people to appropriate support services that can help address any underlying causes of offending behaviour.
The Australian Federal Police’s (AFP) Jack Changes the Game is a picture book developed to address key recommendations from research conducted in 2019 by the AFP-led Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation. The project also includes the development of adult‑led learning resources to help children aged 5 to 8 years to recognise the signs of online grooming and to encourage them to seek help. These form part of a complete learning package, including background information and additional activities for parents/carers and teachers to ensure proper understanding and discussion of online child sexual exploitation.
Queensland Police Service’s Repeat Offender Disruption Strategy uses nudge theory, which proposes that subtle changes in the choices presented to people can influence their behaviour, to explore whether transparent type 2 nudges could reduce recidivism. Offenders receive an SMS message offering support, 24 to 48 hours after being charged, with results showing lower reoffending rates.
Bronze award winners
Home Base’s Step Up: Stop, Think, Evaluate, Plan, Use skills and Patience is a community-led program that works with adolescents aged 11 to 17 who are using violent behaviour in the home, towards family members or intimate partners. The program is a one-on-one case management, outreach model that works with both the young person and their family or intimate partner. Teens learn and practise non-violent, respectful ways of communicating and resolving conflict with those they have been abusive towards, while parents learn a model of respectful parenting that balances leadership and positive support, promoting non-violence in the family.
The Peninsula Community Legal Centre’s This is Not Who I Want to Be interactive theatre project for secondary students provides legal education on family violence and forced marriage to young people from multicultural communities. The project empowers young people by giving them knowledge of their legal rights and obligations and the tools to challenge violence-supporting attitudes to reduce family violence and forced marriage in their own community.
For more information about the award winners, visit aic.gov.au/acvpa
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