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The British Reducing Burglary Initiative (RBI) was evaluated several times in its four year life. CRM No.31 presented the findings of one of these reviews (Kodz & Pease 2003). In a separate study of the RBI, Hope et al. (2004) used a time-series methodology to examine what proportion of the reduction in burglary was directly attributable to the RBI initiative, isolated from all other factors. This supplementary research found that while burglary rates generally declined, this could be attributed to the independent effect of the RBI in only six of the 20 targeted areas.

'Phishing' is a term that describes a way in which a person using the internet may be tricked into giving their personal identification information or banking and finance details to a criminal. Once this information has been obtained by a phisher, they may sell it to another person or use it to commit identity fraud. Internet users need to be aware that credit card details or log-in details used to access finances and services online are valuable and can be misused by others. Phishing is not limited to email-scams.

Performance measurement is a basic tool for answering the management question: "how is your crime prevention program going?" As such, it is an important part of efficiently implementing crime prevention and reduction programs.

Children are responsible for nearly three quarters of deliberately lit fires. There are two basic groups of child firesetters - those who are curious about fire and those who light fires with deliberate intent. Curiosity firesetters are typically quite young (five to ten years old) and usually have no criminal intent. On the other hand, the reasons older children light fires are usually to do with aggression, vandalism, antisocial behaviour, sensation or attention seeking, or in response to social skills deficits.

The annual Australian Crime and Violence Prevention (ACVP) Awards were announced on 10 November 2005. The awards are sponsored by the heads of Australian governments and the members of the Australian and New Zealand Crime Prevention Ministerial Forum as a joint Commonwealth, State and Territory initiative. They recognise and reward outstanding projects that prevent or reduce violence in Australia, to encourage public initiatives and assist governments to identify and develop projects to reduce violence in the community.

Malware (e.g. worms, viruses, backdoors and Trojans) facilitates high tech crime by providing criminals with the means of installing programs on computers that allow them to engage in criminal activities without the computer owners' consent or knowledge (for further information see Choo 2007). Financially motivated criminals and malware authors continue to develop malware to steal personal information, such as bank and online gaming account details. This stolen information can be used to facilitate other crimes such as identity theft and extortion.

The ageing of the population is as much a concern within the justice system as in general society. In 2006, Australia's prison population had a median age of 33, (ABS 2006). While younger than the national median (37 years), the prison population contains a large proportion of older prisoners (50 years and older; Grant 1999). The figure below shows the imprisonment rate (sentenced and remand) for older age groups from 1985 to 2006. Although imprisonment rates overall may be stablising (Crime facts info no. 147), they continue to increase for older groups.

Males are more likely to be victims of robbery in every age group and overall are three times more likely to be a robbery victim than females. The Australian Bureau of Statistics' (ABS) annual publication Recorded crime, victims, Australia presents statistics on incidents of victimisation for a selected range of offences recorded by police over the preceding year. Robbery includes armed and unarmed robbery and includes the use, or threatened use of force or violence.

The Australian Institute of Criminology's Drug Use Monitoring in Australia (DUMA) program provides information through urinalysis and interviews on illegal drug use among people detained in a police station or watchhouse. The chart below highlights the differences between the nine sites in adult male detainees testing positive to cannabis, methylamphetamine, heroin and cocaine during 2006. Consistent across the sites, cannabis was the most widely used drug, with a range of 41 to 67 percent of detainees testing positive.

Of 4,232 adult detainees in police custody who responded to questions on local drug markets, 49 percent (n=2,058) reported that they had purchased drugs in the past month by paying cash. Of these, 584 (14%) said there was an occasion in the past month when they had tried to purchase drugs but were not successful. The most common reason across all drug types was that the dealers did not have the particular drugs sought, and this was most commonly the case for cannabis and cocaine. Across all drug types, around one-quarter of the detainees said that there was no dealer available.

The Australian Institute of Criminology has been monitoring homicides in Australia since 1989. Homicide includes murder, manslaughter and infanticide, but excludes driving-related fatalities unless these occur in the course of a criminal event. In 2005-06 there were 283 homicide incidents in Australia, resulting in 301 victims, committed by 336 offenders. This represents an increase from the previous year, although overall it appears that homicide incidents are in decline. The figure below shows the number of homicide incidents in Australia from 1989-90 to 2005-06.

The Australian Institute of Criminology's Drug Use Monitoring in Australia (DUMA) program operates across Australia surveying police detainees on their drug use and criminal behaviour. In the first quarter of 2003 and the third quarter of 2005 a total of 1,597 detainees (1,355 males and 242 females) in seven sites provided details of partner violence experienced and perpetrated over their lifetimes. A partner was defined as someone with whom the detainee had an intimate relationship, whether they lived with the person or not.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) publishes findings from the worldwide monitoring of the production, trafficking, interception and consumption of illicit drugs in its annual World drug report. The current issue reports on seizures of ATS from 104 countries and territories. The report shows that interception and seizure of ATS in 2004-05 was higher than a decade before, but followed a downward trend that began in 2000.

The Australian Computer Emergency Response Team (AusCERT) presents its findings on trends in electronic attacks on Australian organisations in its annual Australian computer crime and security survey. In the latest survey, 389 organisations responded as to whether they had experienced one or more electronic attacks in the past 12 months. About one in five (22%) had experienced an electronic attack, down from more than one-third (35%) the year before and continuing a downward trend that began in 2004 (49%). Most of these (83%) were from external sources.

The extent of money laundering in and through Australia and its annual impact on the national economy can be estimated using a number of different methods. The figure below shows how these estimates can vary widely in both total amount and upper and lower limits, depending on the method used. A research project funded by the Criminology Research Council (Stamp & Walker 2007) reviewed estimates from several sources and conducted a survey of Australian and international anti-money laundering experts to arrive at a figure for 2004.