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Released prisoners are generally assumed to have poorer health and a higher mortality 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 empirically demonstrate the extent to which this holds true for the whole population. The study tracked 13,667 persons released from prisons in the six years 1995-2001 inclusive, for a minimum of two years.

Recent studies and surveys have identified that financially motivated technology enabled crime cases are of considerable concern to business and industry. A survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers (2006) on behalf of the UK Department of Trade and Industry reported that information security breaches cost UK companies across several industry sectors 10 billion per annum. The independent 2006 AusCERT (2006) survey also raises similar concerns.

There has been considerable media coverage about the negative outcomes associated with the abuse of alcohol and inhalants in Indigenous communities. Police in remote areas have also been concerned about the extent to which illicit drug use is having a negative impact in these communities. In 2005, the National Drug Law Enforcement Research Fund commissioned research into the policing implications of such use in rural and remote Australia.

A domestic violence order (DVO) is issued, generally by a magistrate, as a lawful direction restraining what a family or defacto family member may do in respect of one or more other family members. DVOs are separate from other types of restraining order and are targeted at violent behaviour. It is not an offence to be subject to a restraining order, but it is unlawful to breach the order. The Drug Use Monitoring in Australia (DUMA) program collects data from police detainees in 9 sites across Australia.

To help combat domestic and family violence the Australian Capital Territory arm of the Australian Federal Police, ACT Policing, began the Family Violence Intervention Program in May 1998. The program maintains a database on family violence incidents with the aim of assisting ACT Policing to improve its responses to such incidents. The incidents recorded in the database include each occurrence of family violence in the ACT in which police were either involved or notified, and include events leading up to police arrival at an incident and during police presence.

A recent VicHealth publication (VicHealth 2006) reported on a survey of contemporary community attitudes among 2,800 Victorian respondents to violence against women. The Australian Institute of Criminology analysed and recently reported on the results (Taylor & Mouzos, 2006). There were 2,000 adults aged 18 years and older who were randomly interviewed by telephone for the main sample along with an additional oversample of 800 persons from Chinese, Vietnamese, Italian and Greek backgrounds.

Family violence is a problem in all sectors of Australian society, with particular attention recently being given to its occurrence in remote Indigenous communities. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report, Family violence among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, draws on data from the 2002 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey, in which approximately 9,400 Indigenous Australians aged 15 years and older participated.

The Personal Safety Survey (PSS) was a national survey of people aged 18 or older conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 2005, following the Women's Safety Survey (WSS) carried out in 1996. The content of the two surveys was kept largely consistent, although the WSS included approximately 6,300 female respondents while the PSS sampled approximately 11,800 females and 4,500 males.

The Australian Institute of Criminology has collected data on 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 2004-05 there were 249 incidents involving 267 victims of homicide, the lowest number of homicide incidents and victims in Australia since the AIC began monitoring. The weapons/methods used in the commission of homicide have remained relatively unchanged over the years.

Australian communities are developing innovative and effective community-based projects that help to reduce and prevent crime and violence in all their forms. The annual Australian Crime and Violence Prevention Awards aim to encourage public initiative and help governments develop practical programs to prevent and reduce crime and provide recognition to projects that have been particularly effective. In recognition of the police contribution to crime prevention, in 2006 awards were presented for the first time to two police specific projects or initiatives.

Every year the Report on government services (SCPGS) provides data on perceptions of crime within the community. People are asked one question about which crimes they believe to be a problem or somewhat of a problem in their state or territory, and a second question about perceived crime levels in their local neighbourhood. The figure below shows the percentage who identified illicit drugs, property crimes and violent crimes as a problem over the past five years.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), through its membership of the Australasian Consumer Fraud Taskforce (ACFT) and its SCAMwatch website, monitors scams and informs consumers and small business about how to recognise, avoid and report them. In March 2006, as part of a pilot study, 85 percent of callers (n=103) to the ACCC's national hotline agreed to complete a questionnaire concerning their experiences of consumer scams over the 12 months from March 2005. Callers were asked whether they had received an unsolicited scam and what method was used to contact them.

The Australian Institute of Criminology's National Firearms Theft Monitoring Program was established in 2006 to examine all incidents of firearms theft reported to police. In the program's first annual report, for 2004-05, almost 1,500 firearms, or less than 0.1 of one percent of all registered firearms, were reported as stolen in 668 incidents (Borzycki & Mouzos 2007). This represents a downward trend since earlier research (Mouzos 2002). The figure below shows the majority of rifles (80%), shotguns (82%) and handguns (60%) were stolen from private residential premises.

There is an Australian benchmark of 90% completion of cases in magistrates' courts within six months and in higher courts within 12 months (SCRGS 2007: Box 6.8). The figure below shows how Australian courts perform against this benchmark, using Australian Bureau of Statistics data (ABS 2007). Failure to proceed as scheduled on the day of listing can contribute considerably to the length of a trial and consume significant criminal justice resources through backlogs and delay, even where the failure to proceed occurs due to a late change in plea to guilty.

A smaller total increase in the prison population and stability in the imprisonment rate over the 12 months to June 2006 indicate a slowing of the adult imprisonment rate in Australia. The Australian Institute of Criminology's Australian crime: facts and figures uses Australian Bureau of Statistics data to show the rate of adult imprisonment in Australia by sentenced and remanded prisoners. The overall imprisonment rate at 30 June 2006 was 163 prisoners per 100,000 adult population.