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As Indigenous Australians constitute a small minority of the total Australian population, only very large scale or specially designed surveys will elicit large enough samples to produce robust estimates of the prevalence of illicit drug use. As a result there are only general indicators suggesting that Indigenous Australians use illicit drugs at a higher rate than the general population. The most recent national household drug use survey showed that 27 percent of Indigenous people had used illicit drugs in the previous 12 months, almost double the rate for rest of the population (15%).

Foreword | There is now a strong evidence base that problem behaviour by young children is one of the strongest predictors of both adolescent delinquency and later adult offending. The Pathways to Prevention project began in 2001 with the aim of involving family, school and community in a broad set of planned interventions to prevent anti-social behaviour among this group.

Foreword | Identity-related crime affects all sectors of society - and robust measures are needed to guard against its increase. There are various mechanisms used by organisations to verify the evidence of a person's identity and an important goal is to ensure that any system is as effective and efficient as possible. This paper provides a framework for assessing the competing factors that decision makers need to address when determining the effectiveness and efficiency of any proposed identity checking system.

Foreword | Most prisoners are highly likely to re-offend once released into the community and as a consequence, have a high rate of return to prison. This is a costly cycle: in 2004-05 $1.7 billion was spent on 120 custodial facilities housing a daily average of 24,092 offenders. Given increasing imprisonment rates these costs will continue to escalate unless we actively seek to prevent re-offending among prisoners post-release.

Foreword | Riots such as the Cronulla and Macquarie Fields occurrences and media reports of large numbers of individuals gatecrashing parties understandably raise community concern about the prevalence and causes of group violence. This is a difficult area to research as the number of events is typically low, although their impact can be high. There are also different forms of mass groupings of individuals with higher and lower levels of associated violence.

Unlike most other criminal offences, sex offences usually occur within personal settings with few, if any corroborating witnesses, so a conviction may rely on the victim's word against that of the offender (Queensland. Crime and Misconduct Commission 2003). If an offender confesses to an investigator, three important advantages may result:

In the 1990s, the number of known victims of armed robberies in Australia increased from around 5,000 per year to a peak of over 11,000 in 2001 (Figure 1). Between 2001 and 2005 the number dropped steadily to around 6,000 (ABS 2006). The number of banks robbed and the number of victims of armed robberies involving firearms have generally mirrored this pattern. It is unlikely that these statistics represent the full extent of armed robbery in this country, as these data reflect only offences reported to and recorded by police.

Foreword | Mobile and wireless technologies have evolved beyond recognition since the first radio signals were transmitted in the late nineteenth century. The advent of mobile phones and similar devices has transformed business and social interactions, and Internet access no longer depends on a wired system such as a modem connected to a telephone landline - rather, it can be achieved using a mobile enabled device whenever and wherever a mobile access point is available.

Fraud and internet crime are recognised as important issues for governments and private businesses worldwide. An area of growing concern is the impact of criminal activity on householders who use the internet. Householders use the internet at home for various purposes including work, education, leisure, communication, accessing government services and managing the household. The internet provides the means to perform a variety of specific tasks such as:

Throughout history, consumers have been targeted by deceptive and misleading practices that have ranged in subtlety and complexity from the barely plausible to the refined and sophisticated. Grabosky, Smith & Dempsey (2001: 105-129) proposed a simple classification of the extensive range of illegal practices perpetrated against consumers, in the traditional marketplace and the electronic environment of the 21st century (Table 1).

Foreword | It has been estimated that Australia expends between $1.3 and $2 billion annually on drug law enforcement activity. Such a high level of effort and commitment means that it is vitally important to have good systems in place to measure the efficiency and effectiveness of law enforcement action to reduce drug problems in the Australian community. However, Australia's drug law enforcement activities are undertaken in conjunction with efforts to reduce demand and levels of drug related harm, coordinated through the National Drug Strategy.

Foreword | Bot programs allow attackers to remotely control vulnerable computers and form virtual networks of zombies - botnets. Botnets can be leveraged to orchestrate concerted attacks against other computing resources, for example, distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against targeted networks. The shift in motivation from curiosity and fame seeking to illicit financial gain has been marked by a growing sophistication in the evolution of bot malware.

Foreword | Although mental illness is widely recognised as a problem in modern society, it presents particular challenges for the criminal justice system. Research has shown that offenders have higher rates of mental illness than the general community. The Criminology Research Council commissioned a study to assess the level of screening and the instruments used across the jurisdictions by criminal justice agencies.

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.