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Abstract

Abstract

Abstract

In Australia and overseas there exists a paucity of research on deaths in custody where women are the primary focus of study; most of the literature in this area treats women as a subset of the primary focus - men. It has been suggested that this lack of information about women dying in custody is due to the relatively small number of female deaths when compared with the number of male deaths. Indeed, Scraton and Chadwick (1995, p. 89) comment that:

For the purposes of this analysis, the market in illicit antiquities might usefully be split into three stages: the supply of antiquities emanating from source nations, the demand created by consumers in market nations, and the chain of transportation which links the two. By considering these "divisions of labour", targeted solutions to the problem may be easier to identify than if the market as a whole is considered. This paper deals only with the supply and demand stages; the transport networks which move illicit goods are discussed in an earlier paper in this series (Mackenzie 2002).

Gangs exist within and outside schools, though not all delinquent behaviour is gang activity and not all gang activity involves crime or deviance. An earlier Trends and Issues paper (no. 237) stated that an important part of gang research is to explore ways of stopping criminal gangs from forming and/or growing. A working definition of a criminal gang for the present discussion is one in which a group sees itself as a "gang", and is perceived by others around it as a "gang", primarily because of its illegal activities.

This research examines the effect child maltreatment has on juvenile offending. This relationship has implications for understanding criminal behaviour as well as implications for child protection initiatives and crime prevention strategies. Recently, the field of developmental criminology has focused attention on the impacts of exposure to risk and protective factors at different points in a child's development (Loeber & Stouthamer-Loeber 1996). Of particular interest are the factors that lead to the onset and end of criminal behaviour.

It is now generally accepted that crimes which are reported to the police may under-represent levels and patterns of crime occurring in the community. Many crimes go unreported to the police, meaning that not only is an accurate description of crime difficult to obtain, but the overall picture of crime that we do obtain may be biased. This is particularly a problem for police and government agencies that must use valuable resources to combat crime problems based on their understanding of where crime is occurring and the types of crime that occur.

Concerns about displacement have been succinctly described by Eck (1998) as follows:

Fear of displacement is often based on the assumption that offenders are like predatory animals (they will do whatever it takes to commit crimes just as a rat will do whatever it takes to steal food from the cupboard).

Theorists have identified six ways in which criminal activity might be displaced following situational crime prevention measures (Reppetto 1976; Hakim & Rengert 1981; Barr & Pease 1990; Hesseling 1994):

Foreword | This paper outlines the findings of a study that evaluated the processes of a Northern Territory Business Watch crime prevention program through a survey in 2002 of the members of a business association which managed the scheme. The results point to a severe lack of awareness about the program by association members, which in turn resulted in low levels of participation. In addition, members found it difficult to contribute sufficient time and resources to the scheme, and were largely unable to provide an assessment of the effectiveness of the program.

Foreword |This paper presents an initial analysis of tapes containing confidential and non identifying interviews with ten active and retired Australian police commissioners. The interviews were initiated by the Australian Institute of Criminology in 1999 and were conducted by former Tasmanian police commissioner John Johnston.

Foreword | This paper examines the offender behaviour patterns of residential burglars to demonstrate why protected communities are less likely to provide the protection from outsiders that residents seek. In examining the home addresses of Canberra burglars and the addresses of their targets, the study finds that burglars do not, as expected, work in their own neighbourhood. In A.C.T. burglaries recorded in 1999 and 2000, most burglars (77%) travelled away from their home suburb to do their work, travelling an average of five kilometres to their target.

Foreword | This paper presents up to date figures on the costs of a range of offences and crime as a whole in Australia. The costs assessed include medical costs, lost output, and intangible costs, which set a monetary value on pain, suffering and lost quality of life.

Foreword | This paper is timely, given that policing is currently going through a period of significant change in both operational tactics and organisational structures. New ideas in crime reduction and changes to short- and long-term policing strategies are underway. Intelligence-led policing represents a recent approach and is one of the more prevalent of the current "shifts in crime control philosophy and policing practice" (Maguire 2000).