Australian Institute of Criminology

Last updated

Australian Institute of Criminology
Australian Institute of Criminology logo.png
Agency overview
Formed1973 (1973)
Employees18 [1]
Parent department Attorney-General's Department
Website aic.gov.au

The Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) is Australia's national research and knowledge centre on crime and criminal justice. The Institute seeks to promote justice and reduce crime by undertaking and communicating evidence-based research to inform policy and practice.

Contents

The functions of the AIC include conducting criminological research; communicating the results of research; conducting or arranging conferences and seminars; and publishing material arising out of the AIC's work.

Structure

An Australian Government agency, the AIC was established in 1973 and operates under the Criminology Research Act 1971. [2] It is part of the Attorney-General's portfolio and accountable to the Attorney-General.

The AIC works closely with the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC). The Chief Executive Officer of the ACIC is also the Director of the AIC, and although an independent entity, AIC staff were transferred to the ACIC under a Machinery of Government process in 2015.

The Criminology Research Advisory Council, representing Commonwealth and state and territory justice agencies, is responsible for providing advice to the Director of the AIC on strategic priorities for research and priorities for communicating research results. AIC research is also subject to ethical standards which are governed through the oversight of an ethics committee, in accordance with National Health and Medical Research Council requirements. [3]

Research

Undertaking research is the core function of the Australian Institute of Criminology. Research is conducted on a range of crime and criminal justice issues to provide timely, policy-relevant research to the Australian Government and other key stakeholders.

Research activities fall into two main categories: national monitoring programs on homicide, drug use, deaths in custody, and fraud against the Commonwealth; and projects on a range of crime and justice topics (see Publications below).

Publications

The Australian Institute of Criminology has been a significant criminal justice publisher since the mid-1970s. Publications cover broad subject areas including violent crime, drugs, transnational and organised crime, financial crime, cybercrime, policing, crime prevention, corrections and the criminal justice system.

Current series

JV Barry Library

Honouring Justice Sir John Vincent Barry, the distinguished Australian criminologist and jurist, the JV Barry Library is a major criminal justice information resource that provides services to stakeholders and supports the information needs of the institute's research programs. It produces the Australian Criminology database—CINCH, an index of Australian criminal justice information.

The JV Barry Library has the most comprehensive library-based collection in the field of criminology and criminal justice in Australia. [4] The collection comprises approximately 90,000 catalogue records for books, serial titles, journal articles, annual reports and other report series.

Related Research Articles

The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) is the office or official charged with the prosecution of criminal offences in several criminal jurisdictions around the world. The title is used mainly in jurisdictions that are or have been members of the Commonwealth of Nations.

A violent crime, violent felony, crime of violence or crime of a violent nature is a crime in which an offender or perpetrator uses or threatens to use harmful force upon a victim. This entails both crimes in which the violent act is the objective, such as murder, assault, rape and assassination, as well as crimes in which violence is used as a method of coercion or show of force, such as robbery, extortion and terrorism. Violent crimes may, or may not, be committed with weapons. Depending on the jurisdiction, violent crimes may be regarded with varying severities from homicide to harassment. There have been many theories regarding heat being the cause of an increase in violent crime. Theorists claim that violent crime is persistent during the summer due to the heat, further causing people to become aggressive and commit more violent crime.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Law enforcement in Australia</span> Overview of law enforcement in Australia

Law enforcement in Australia is one of the three major components of the country's justice system, along with courts and corrections. Law enforcement officers are employed by all three levels of government – federal, state/territory, and local.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission</span> Australian government agency

The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) is a law enforcement agency established by the Australian federal government on 1 July 2016, following the merger of the Australian Crime Commission (ACC) and CrimTrac. It has specialist investigative capabilities and delivers and maintains national information sharing systems. ACIC is part of the National Intelligence Community.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mick Keelty</span> Australian police chief

Michael Joseph Keelty is a retired Australian Police Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police from 2001 to 2009. He was also the inaugural chairperson of the Australian Crime Commission, now known as the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crime in Australia</span>

Crime in Australia is managed by various law enforcement bodies, the federal and state-based criminal justice systems and state-based correctional services.

The Australian Intelligence Community (AIC) and the National Intelligence Community (NIC) or National Security Community of the Australian Government are the collectives of statutory intelligence agencies, policy departments, and other government agencies concerned with protecting and advancing the national security and national interests of the Commonwealth of Australia. The intelligence and security agencies of the Australian Government have evolved since the Second World War and the Cold War and saw transformation and expansion during the Global War on Terrorism with military deployments in Afghanistan, Iraq and against ISIS in Syria. Key international and national security issues for the Australian Intelligence Community include terrorism and violent extremism, cybersecurity, transnational crime, the rise of China, and Pacific regional security.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aboriginal deaths in custody</span> Political and social issue in Australia

Aboriginal deaths in custody is a political and social issue in Australia. It rose in prominence in the early 1980s, with Aboriginal activists campaigning following the death of 16-year-old John Peter Pat in 1983. Subsequent deaths in custody, considered suspicious by families of the deceased, culminated in the 1987 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (RCIADIC).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Crime Records Bureau</span> Indian government agency

National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) is an Indian government agency responsible for collecting and analyzing, crime data as defined by the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Special and Local Laws (SLL). NCRB is headquartered in New Delhi and is part of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) under the Government of India. Vivek Gogia (IPS) is current Director of National Crime Record Bureau.

In several countries including Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and South Africa, a community court is a neighborhood-focused problem-solving court that applies a problem-solving approach to local crime and safety concerns. Community courts can take many forms, but all strive to create new relationships, both within the justice system and with outside stakeholders such as residents, merchants, churches and schools. Community courts emphasize collaboration, crime prevention, and improved outcomes, including lower recidivism and safer communities. Community courts are also sometimes referred to as community or neighborhood justice centers.

Arie Freiberg is an Israeli-born Australian legal academic. He was formerly Dean of Monash Law School from 2004 and retired at the end of 2012. His expertise is in criminal law and criminology and he was the Chair of the Victorian Sentencing Advisory Council from 2004 to 2022. His research has focussed on sentencing and the administration of criminal justice, but he has over one hundred publications in many areas of law.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Human trafficking in Australia</span>

Human trafficking in Australia is illegal under Divisions 270 and 271 of the Criminal Code (Cth). In September 2005, Australia ratified the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, which supplemented the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. Amendments to the Criminal Code were made in 2005 to implement the Protocol.

Market reduction approach (MRA) is an approach to reducing crime by reducing the opportunity for thieves to fence or resell what they have stolen.

Indigenous Australians are both convicted of crimes and imprisoned at a disproportionately higher rate in Australia, as well as being over-represented as victims of crime. As of September 2019, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoners represented 28% of the total adult prisoner population, while accounting for 2% of the general adult population. Various explanations have been given for this over-representation, both historical and more recent. Federal and state governments and Indigenous groups have responded with various analyses, programs and measures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Punishment in Australia</span>

Punishment in Australia arises when an individual has been accused or convicted of breaking the law through the Australian criminal justice system. Australia uses prisons, as well as community corrections. When awaiting trial, prisoners may be kept in specialised remand centres or within other prisons.

Women's Justice Network (WJN), formerly known as the Women in Prison Advocacy Network (WIPAN), is an incorporated not-for-profit charity based in Sydney, Australia, focused on advocacy around issues affecting female prisoners.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Public criminology</span> Academic tendency within criminology

Public criminology is an approach to criminology that disseminates criminological research beyond academia to broader audiences, such as criminal justice practitioners and the general public. Public criminology is closely tied with “public sociology”, and draws on a long line of intellectuals engaging in public interventions related to crime and justice. Some forms of public criminology are conducted through methods such as classroom education, academic conferences, public lectures, “news-making criminology”, government hearings, newspapers, radio and television broadcasting and press releases. Advocates of public criminology argue that the energies of criminologists should be directed towards "conducting and disseminating research on crime, law, and deviance in dialogue with affected communities." Public criminologists focus on reshaping the image of the criminal and work with communities to find answers to pressing questions. Proponents of public criminology see it as potentially narrowing "the yawning gap between public perceptions and the best available scientific evidence on issues of public concern", a problem they see as especially pertinent to matters of crime and punishment.

In the Australian legal system, a good behaviour bond is a type of non-custodial sentence which involves the condition of the offender's "good behaviour" for a set period. The condition of "good behaviour" primarily requires the offender to obey the law, but may also include additional probation officer supervision, mandatory medical treatment or participation in rehabilitation, counselling and intervention programs. These imposed conditions are determined by state legislation and at the magistrate's discretion. A good behaviour bond may be established with or without a recorded legal conviction for the offence. The specific conditions which constitute a good behaviour bond, as well as the consequences for breaching them, vary under each Australian state or territory's legislation, but overall are used most commonly for first-time and juvenile offenders.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crime in Slovenia</span>

Crime in Slovenia is prevented by Slovenian law enforcement agencies such as the Slovenian National Police Force.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laurie O. Robinson</span> American scholar and public servant

Laurie Robinson is an American scholar and public servant who has held multiple positions across government, academia, and the nonprofit sector. Robinson's most notable roles include serving as Assistant Attorney General in charge of the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs under former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and co-chairing Obama's Task Force on 21st Century Policing. She also served on the congressionally created Charles Colson Task Force on Federal Corrections and on an independent commission that explored the potential closure of New York City's Rikers Island jail complex. Most recently, Robinson served as founding Chair of the Board of Directors of the Council on Criminal Justice, a nonpartisan policy and research organization.

References

  1. "Table 9". Annual Report 2017-2018 (Report). Australian Institute of Criminology. Retrieved 25 July 2019.
  2. "Criminology Research Act 1971". Office of Parliamentary Counsel, Australian Government. Retrieved 25 July 2019.
  3. "About us". Australian Institute of Criminology. Retrieved 25 July 2019.
  4. "Library". Australian Institute of Criminology. Retrieved 25 July 2019.