Annual reports

Research projects

published in:
28th Annual Report of the Criminology Research Council, 2000
ISSN 0311-4481
Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 2000

New Projects Funded

The CRC considered twenty-two grant applications during the year, two of which were approved.

Particulars of the successful grants are as follows:

1. Private Investigators in Australia: Work, Law, Ethics and Regulation Dr Timothy Prenzler, Griffith University (15/99-00).

   At its meeting on 29 July 1999 the CRC made a grant of $13,086 for this project.

   The research involves a systematic review of the legal framework within which investigators operate, and uses in-depth interviews to map out both the nature of private investigative work and practitioners' perspectives on key issues. The latter focus will include questions of social impact, relationships with the public sector justice system, perceptions of the appropriateness of legal constraints, pressures to use illegal means of performing tasks and attitudes to regulatory controls. From these findings an evaluation will be made of the contribution of private investigators to public interest goals of justice and crime reduction. An assessment will also be made of policy options in law reform and regulation. This will address possible means of facilitating the beneficial law enforcement functions of private investigators and of improving their compliance with legal and ethical standards.

2. Community-based Parenting Program for the Prevention of Adolescent Antisocial Behaviour Associate Professors Alan Ralph and Matthew Sanders, James Cook University (22/99-00).

   At its meeting on 29 July 1999 the CRC made a grant of $42,284 for this project.

   The project aims to implement and evaluate a community-based positive parenting program to reduce risk factors associated with juvenile crime. It will target parents of preadolescent children in areas of high juvenile crime who are making the transition to high school. The project's objectives are to: (a) reduce specific family risk factors by increasing parental use of positive parenting strategies, a sense of self-efficacy in parenting and parent support for school behaviour management policies, as well as reducing the use of coercive parenting methods, parental depression and the level of marital conflict over parenting; (b) reduce behavioural problems of adolescents by increasing social competence, enhancing self-esteem and reducing disruptive, aggressive and oppositional behaviour; and (c) prevent severe conduct problems by reducing the number of "high risk" adolescents with subclinical levels of behaviour disturbance developing into clinical disorders and the number of adolescents with mild to moderately severe conduct disorders developing severe disorders.

Consultancy

During the year the CRC developed a research consultancy on sentencing trends for violent offenders in Australia, which seeks to identify factors that influence such trends. The research will take into account changes in legislation and possible policy implications. It will examine sentencing trends for homicide, assault, sex offences, robbery and any other offences against the person.

A team headed by Professor Richard Harding, from the University of Western Australia's Crime Research Centre, made the successful tender. The research commenced January 2000 and is scheduled for completion in January 2001.

The CRC issued a brief to conduct a review of the various types of Australian restorative justice programs. The review is being undertaken by Ms Heather Strang, from the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University, and is scheduled for completion in November 2000.

The CRC also resolved to allocate a scoping paper and literature search to identify the dimensions of a project entitled The Psycho-social Environment of Prisons and its Relationship to Recidivism to the Crime Research Centre, University of Western Australia.

Reports Received of Completed Research 1999-2000

The CRC received seven reports of completed research projects during the year. Summaries of these reports are given below:

1. Aboriginal Youth Suicide: Towards a Model of Explanation and Alleviation Professor Colin Tatz, Macquarie University (25/96-7) (1999)

   The report for this project is entitled "Aboriginal Suicide is Different". A model has been developed that may help explain and alleviate Aboriginal youth suicide in NSW and the ACT. Fieldwork was undertaken in fifty-five locations, and for comparison research into and strategies for alleviation of Maori youth suicide was also examined. Over 388 interviews were conducted with Aborigines and Maori, non-Indigenous personnel working with communities, police, coroners, psychiatrists and mental-health and youth workers in both countries.

   The report presents strategies for alleviation that embrace an educational focus on historical, legal, political, social and cultural factors which impinge on Aboriginal and Maori youth suicide.

2. The Effectiveness of Legal Protection in Prevention of Domestic Violence in the Lives of Young Australian Women Professor Annette Dobson, Dr Julie Byles and Ms Margrette Young, University of Newcastle (30/96-7) (2000)

   This report describes a large national study of young women who experienced physical violence by a partner. It looks in particular at the effectiveness of legal protection in preventing repeated violence. It compares the outcomes for women who obtained legal protection from the police or courts with outcomes for women without legal protection. It is an observational study of the "natural history" of partner violence against young women in the community.

3. Directors' Misconduct Decriminalised: Are the Civil Sanctions in the Corporations Law Effective? Professor Ian Ramsay and Ms Helen Bird, University of Melbourne (16/97-8) (1999)

   The Australian Federal Parliament introduced civil penalties into company law in 1993, with the expectation that there would be more effective enforcement of directors' duties. However, in the six years since civil penalties were introduced, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has commenced only fourteen civil penalty actions. The research undertaken by the authors reveals that civil penalties are perceived by ASIC as serving only a limited deterrent function. The factors that have caused this include ASIC's resource constraints, including financial and resource constraints; its relationships with other regulatory agencies; its recourse to alternative sanctions; and its concerns about the limited utility of civil penalties and the unclear nature of the civil penalty regime and its regulatory praxis.

4. Young Women in the Juvenile Justice System Dr Christine Alder and Ms Nichole Hunter, University of Melbourne (17/97-8) (1999)

   The research project had two objectives: to investigate the nature of young women's offending; and to examine young women's accounts of their experiences of the juvenile justice system. Two reports were produced, one for each of these objectives. Data analysed in the project came from two sources: Victorian Children's Court Statistics (1990-96) and interviews with forty-eight young women in the juvenile justice system in Victoria and South Australia. It is hoped that this information will assist in the development of policy and practice to meet the needs of young women in the juvenile justice system.

5. An Examination of the Illegal Art Market in Australia Associate Professor Ken Polk, University of Melbourne (8/98-9) (2000)

   The report represents a first exploration of the place of illegality in the art market of Australia. It draws upon qualitative data, including interviews and field observations involving over 300 respondents (dealers, museum personnel, police, insurance representatives and others) to examine the general size and dimensions of theft and fraud in the art world. The report observes that both theft and fakery are persistent problems in the art market of Australia. The nature of the market tends to restrict somewhat the level of art theft, but issues of fakes and frauds tend to present major problems for those involved in the art trade. The Aboriginal art market poses its own particular issues, especially since there tends to be persistent issues of authorship and authenticity raised. A number of issues regarding prevention, including the importance of developing an art-theft register for Australia, are being considered.

6. A Survey of Aboriginal Community Attitudes to Domestic Violence Dr Geoffrey Genever, Apunipima Cape York Health Council, Queensland (42/98-9) (2000)

   The report for this project is entitled "Yes, but I never hit her in the face": A Survey of Attitudes to Domestic Violence in Cape York Aboriginal Communities. The project is an examination of attitudes towards the phenomenon of violence. It looks particularly, although not exclusively, at domestic violence or family violence among Indigenous people. It is based on the responses to a set of questions posed to representative groups of Aboriginal people, most of whom live in communities on Queensland's Cape York Peninsula. While the survey concentrated on attitudes towards domestic violence, the project was not restricted to violence within the family setting because of the belief that domestic violence in Aboriginal communities cannot be properly understood if it is viewed in isolation from other forms of violence.

7. The Characteristics of Child Molesters and Child Molesting in Queensland Mr Stephen Smallbone, Dr Richard Wortley and Professor Ross Homel, Griffith University (51/98-9) (2000)

   The report for this project, which was jointly funded by the CRC and Queensland Crime Commission, is entitled "Child Sexual Abuse in Queensland: Offender Characteristics and Modus Operandi". This study utilised official demographic and offence history data and confidential self-report data to examine the characteristics and modus operandi of men currently serving sentences in Queensland for sexual offences against children. Official data were gathered on 323 offenders, and 182 (56.6 per cent) of these provided extensive self-report data. Findings suggested that, in the main, child sexual offenders: are generalist, rather than specialist offenders; known to their victim and to their victims' parents; rarely use overt violence to obtain sexual contact with their victims; and rely on emotional connections with children to avoid detection. The authors argue that existing public policy responses to child sexual abuse rely almost exclusively on tertiary prevention strategies, and that reductions in the incidence of child sexual abuse may be better achieved through primary (for example, situational) and secondary (for example, developmental) prevention programs.

Consultancy: Factors that Influence Remand in Custody

The final report for stage one of this research was published, in conjunction with the AIC, in the Research and Public Policy Series.

The study sought to identify factors that may influence rates of adult remand in custody in three jurisdictions: South Australia, Victoria and Western Australia. The results showed significant differences in remand rates between jurisdictions, and identified a range of factors, which potentially operate at each stage of the process and influence the ultimate decision taken by the judicial officer in the court. These included both "formal" elements, such as legislative requirements, as well as "informal" influences such as agreements reached between police prosecutors and defence counsel prior to a bail hearing. No single factor was sufficient to explain the differences in remand rates. The report concluded that remand in custody outcomes are a result of a complex interweaving of legislative provisions and interpretations by magistrates and other actors in the process.

The publication is entitled "Factors Affecting Remand in Custody: A Study of Bail Practices in Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia" and is available for sale at the AIC.

Research in Progress

1. Reintegrative Shaming of Violence, Drink Driving and Property Crime: A Randomised Controlled Trial
   Professors J. Braithwaite and L. Sherman, Australian National University, Canberra CRC 47/93-4.
2. The Effectiveness of Criminal Sanctions: A Natural Experiment
   Dr David Tait, University of Melbourne CRC 33/96-7.
3. Shame Management and Social Reintegration for Bullies and Victims: The Prism Project
   Dr Valerie Braithwaite, Australian National University CRC 6/97-8.
4. A Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis of the Relationship Between Community Cohesiveness and Rural Crime
   Dr Patrick Jobes, Dr Joe Donnermeyer and Ms Elaine Crosby, University of New England CRC 7/97-8.
5. Hearing Loss and Communication Disability within the Criminal Justice System
   Dr Al Yonovitz and Mr Grant Preston, Menzies School of Health Research, Royal Darwin Hospital, Northern Territory CRC 15/97-8.
6. Criminal Forfeiture and Confiscation
   Professor Richard Fox and Professor Arie Freiberg, Monash University CRC 38/97-8.
7. Sentencing the Multiple Offender
   Dr Austin Lovegrove, University of Melbourne CRC 7/98-9.
8. An Investigation into the Experiences of Child Complainants of Sexual Abuse within the Criminal Justice System
   Dr Christine Eastwood, Queensland University of Technology CRC 23/98-9.
9. An Evaluation of Anger Management Programs with Violent Offenders in Two Australian States
   Professor Kevin Howells and Dr Andrew Day, University of South Australia CRC 37/98-9.
10. An Investigation of the Role of Resiliency Promoting Factors in Preventing Adverse Life Outcomes During Adolescence
    Dr Bruce Johnson, Dr Susan Howard and Mr Murray Oswald, University of South Australia CRC 39/98-9.