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The Drug Use Careers of Offenders (DUCO) study conducted by the Australian Institute of Criminology collected information on the lifetime offending and substance use patterns of 371 juveniles incarcerated in Australian detention centres. The project, which was funded by the Australian Government Attorney-General's Department, asked the juveniles to report their lifetime experiences of neglect and abuse. Violent abuse was most frequently reported (36%) followed by emotional abuse (27%) and neglect (18%).

The 2003 farm crime survey, funded by the Australian Government Attorney-General's Department and conducted by the Australian Institute of Criminology, focused on the types of crimes that affect farming operations. Common examples of such crimes include theft of livestock, produce, machinery or other property; farmhouse burglary; vandalism or sabotage; and illegal hunting or fishing. Seventeen percent of all farms reported experiencing farm crime at least once in the 12 months leading up to the survey.

The Australian Survey of Social Attitudes (AuSSA) is a survey of 4270 Australians, first carried out by the Australian National University's Centre for Social Research in 2003. One of the questions asked by AuSSA in 2003 was whether respondents believed crime had increased, decreased or stayed the same over the past two years. As can be seen in the chart below, belief that crime had increased either a little or a lot was most common. Comparatively few people perceived crime as having decreased in the two years leading up to the survey. Perception of crime varied across age groups.

The 2004 National Drug Strategy household survey was conducted by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) at the request of the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing. This was the eighth and largest National Drug Strategy survey, the first being conducted in 1985. Almost 30,000 Australians participated in the 2004 survey, in which they were asked about their past and present drug consumption and attitudes towards drugs and drug policy. Earlier surveys asked similar questions, but employed smaller samples.

The National Crime and Safety Survey was conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) in 1993, 1998, 2002 and 2005, as a mailback supplement to the April Labour Force Survey. According to the surveys, rates of household victimisation declined overall for break-in, attempted break-in, motor vehicle theft, and total household crime between 1993 and 2005.

According to a Business Software Alliance study of global trends in software piracy, in 2005 the worldwide rate of personal computer software piracy stood at 35 percent, a one percentage point decrease on the 2003 global rate. The rate of software piracy in each country was calculated by subtracting the units of legitimate packaged software paid for during the year from total units of packaged software put to use during that year. The resulting number was the divided by total units of packaged software to produce a percentage rate.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics' Recorded crime, victims, Australia annual publication, property crime has undergone dramatic decline in recent years. Property crime is defined as including unlawful entry with intent (UEWI), motor vehicle theft (MVT), and other theft. Other theft includes offences such as pickpocketing, bag snatching, shoplifting and bicycle theft. In the period 1993-2005, the rate per 100,000 population of UEWI has been approximately steady at between 2,100 and 2,320 until 2001.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report Juvenile justice in Australia 2000-01 to 2003-04 is based on community-based and detention-based supervision data collected from state and territory agencies responsible for juvenile justice. Data from this dataset, available for the first time in 2006, showed that the number of individuals within the juvenile justice system in Australia declined in the period 2000-01 to 2003-04 by five percent, from 13,318 to 12,656 persons.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics' annual publication Recorded crime, victims, Australia presents national crime statistics on victims of selected offences recorded by police. The figure below shows the trends in victims of armed and unarmed robbery between 1993 and 2005. Robbery is defined as the unlawful taking of property from the immediate possession of a person or organisation, accompanied by the use, or threatened use, of force. Armed robbery includes instances where a weapon was used, or its use threatened.

The National Armed Robbery Monitoring Program (NARMP) began in 2003, with the goal of providing information that would permit the detailed, national-level exploration of armed robbery, including trends in weapon use. The data, based on incidences of reported armed robbery, are collected by police forces in the jurisdictions and passed on to the Australian Institute of Criminology, which administers the NARMP. The chart below shows a breakdown of victims of armed robbery in 2004 by selected locations where the robbery occurred, and type of weapon used.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare publication Child protection in Australia each year reports on child abuse and neglect notifications and substantiations, and the way in which authorities deal with these. In Australia, child protection is the responsibility of community services departments in each state and territory. Following reports of child abuse or neglect (known as notifications), the relevant department launches an investigation.

The Drug Use Monitoring in Australia (DUMA) program is a crime monitoring program that focuses on illegal drug use amongst police detainees. It involves the collection of self-report and urinalysis data from people detained in seven police stations and watchhouses across Australia, with reporting on a quarterly basis. The figure below shows the percentage of adult male detainees testing positive to selected illicit drugs between 1999 (when DUMA began) and 2005. Cannabis is the drug detainees are most likely to test positive to, followed by methylamphetamine and then heroin.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics' Personal safety survey was conducted from August to December 2005, surveying a sample of approximately 16,400 women and men aged 18 years and over. The questionnaire focused on men's and women's self-reported experience of physical and sexual violence. Males were more likely to report being victims of physical assault and females were more likely to report being victims of sexual assault.

Released prisoners are generally assumed to have poorer health, as reflected in a higher morbidity rate, than members of the general population. A recent Criminology Research Council report, Mortality and morbidity in prisoners after release from prison in Western Australia 1995-2003 is the first comprehensive study to demonstrate the degree to which this holds true. After adjustment for age, released prisoners had substantially higher hospital admission rates or contacts with mental health services than the general population.

The connection between drug use and criminal activity is frequently debated in the community. The Drug Use Monitoring in Australia (DUMA) program, managed by the Australian Institute of Criminology, is focused on people who come into contact with the criminal justice system to provide specialised data that cannot be found in routine administrative data collections. As part of its quarterly survey, DUMA collects information on the age of first and regular use of seven classes of drugs, as well as the age of first arrest.