By Lynn Langton; Edward Preble; Daniel Brannock; Erin Kennedy

To address gaps in intervention research, RTI International and the University of Minnesota conducted the Mass Marketing Elder Fraud Intervention (MMEFI) Study with collaboration and support from the USPIS. This study found that the ways in which victims begin responding to scams and their reasons for stopping (or not stopping) their involvement are quite varied. As such, there is likely no one intervention that would work for every type of victim. Thus, the MMEFI team will use findings from these interviews to create intervention materials that target the problem in various ways. This multiphase research project included a secondary analysis of USPIS administrative data on prior scams and a randomized controlled trial test of the efficacy of two variations of a mailed intervention for preventing revictimization by mail fraud. The overall objective was to provide specific policy recommendations to the USPIS and other consumer protection agencies regarding the effectiveness of a mailed intervention. 

Research Triangle Park, NC: RTI, 2023. 145p.

Edited by Nissa Finney, James Nazroo, Laia Bécares, Dharmi Kapadia and Natalie Shlomo

This book illustrates life through the COVID-19 pandemic for ethnic minorities in Britain. Drawing from the Evidence for Equality National Survey (EVENS), the book presents new evidence of ethnic inequalities and sheds new light on underlying racisms, opening them up to debate as crucial social concerns. Written by leading international experts in the field, this is a must-read for anyone interested in contemporary ethnic inequalities and racism from academics and policy makers to voluntary and community sector organisations.

Bristol, UK: Policy Press, 2023. 234p.

By Corine Tachtiris

Translation and Race brings together translation studies with critical race studies for a long-overdue reckoning with race and racism in translation theory and practice. This book explores the "unbearable whiteness of translation" in the West that excludes scholars and translators of color from the field and also upholds racial inequities more broadly. Outlining relevant concepts from critical race studies, Translation and Race demonstrates how norms of translation theory and practice in the West actually derive from ideas rooted in white supremacy and other forms of racism. Chapters explore translation’s role in historical processes of racialization, racial capitalism and intellectual property, identity politics and Black translation praxis, the globalization of critical race studies, and ethical strategies for translating racist discourse. Beyond attempts to diversify the field of translation studies and the literary translation profession, this book ultimately calls for a radical transformation of translation theory and practice. This book is crucial reading for advanced students and scholars in translation studies, critical race and ethnic studies, and related areas, as well as for practicing translators.

London: Routledge, 2024. 188p.

By J.M. Vorster, Nico Vorster, Jan A. du Rand, Riaan Rheeder, Dirk van der Merwe, Theuns Eloff, Ferdi P. Kruger, Reginald W. Nel 

Race and inequality have always been sensitive topics in South African society due to its colonial past, diverse social composition and apartheid legacy of legal discrimination against people on the basis of their skin colour. Racial tensions seem to be escalating in South African society and disturbing racialised rhetoric and slogans are re-entering the political and social landscape. Another disturbing phenomenon has been violent incidents of xenophobia against African immigrants. The question probed by this book is: What perspectives can theology offer in addressing the roots of racism, inequality and xenophobia in South Africa and how can it and the church contribute to reconciliation and a sense of togetherness among South African citizens? Various methodologies and approaches are used to address this question. In chapter 1, Theuns Eloff employs a historical and socio-analytical approach to describe the social context that has given rise, and is still giving impetus to racism and other forms of intolerance in South African society. Nico Vorster approaches the issue of distorted racial identity constructions from a theological-anthropological perspective. Utilising various empirical studies, he attempts to provide conceptual clarity to the concepts of racism, nationalism, ethnocentrism and xenophobia, and maps the various racisms that we find in South Africa. His contribution concludes with a theological-anthropological discussion on ways in which theology can deconstruct distorted identities and contribute to the development of authentic identities. Koos Vorster provides a theological-ethical perspective on social stratification in South Africa. He identifies the patterns inherent to the institutionalisation of racist social structures and argues that many of these patterns are still present, albeit in a new disguise, in the South African social order. Jan du Rand provides in chapter 4 a semantic discussion of the notions of race and xenophobia. He argues that racist ideologies are not constructed on a factual basis, but that racial ideologies use semantic notions to construct social myths that enable them to attain power and justify the exploitation and oppression of the other. Du Rand’s second contribution in chapter 5 provides Reformed exegetical and hermeneutic perspectives on various passages and themes in the Bible that relate to anthropology, xenophobia and the imperative to xenophilia [love of the stranger]. Dirk Van der Merwe’s contribution analyses, evaluates, and compares both contemporary literature and ancient texts of the Bible to develop a model that can enable churches to promote reconciliation in society, while Ferdi Kruger investigates the various ways in which language can be used as a tool to disseminate hate speech. He offers an analytical description of hate language, provides normative perspectives on the duty to counter hate speech through truth speaking and phronesis (wisdom) and concludes with practical-theological perspectives that might enable us to address problematic praxis. Reggie Nel explores the Confessions of Belhar and the Declaration of Accra as theological lenses to provide markers for public witness in a postcolonial South African setting. The volume concludes with Riaan Rheeder’s Christian bioethical perspective on inequality in the health sector of sub-Sahara Africa. This book contains original research. No part was plagiarised or published elsewhere. The target audience are theologians, ministers and the Christian community, but social activists, social scientists, politicians, political theorists, sociologists and psychologists might also find the book applicable to their fields.

Durbanville, AOSIS, 2017. 338p.

By Garth Morgan, et al.

First Nations children experience high rates of domestic and family violence and are overrepresented in child protection systems in Australia. The long history of violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people that commenced with colonisation, the effects of which are still being felt today, significantly contributes to these outcomes. Policies intended to respond to these harms, improve wellbeing, and enhance safety, instead continue to cause harm, rarely providing culturally safe, well-resourced and trauma informed solutions.

This is the second of two reports from the project, Service system responses and culturally designed practice frameworks to address the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children exposed to domestic and family violence. The project used culturally safe, participatory action research methods with First Nations community members in eight regional and remote locations across Queensland to generate new knowledge about what works for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children who have both experienced domestic and family violence and had contact with the child protection system. The first report from this project, New ways for our families explored existing literature and presented the findings from the first action research cycles. The final report, You can’t pour from an empty cup presents the findings, conclusions and recommendations from the final rounds of action research.

Significantly, the researchers found that experiencing domestic and family violence negatively impacted childhoods, behaviours and the ability to form healthy relationships as adults. Harms were carried forward into adulthood as these children and young people became parents and moved through systems. As a result many experienced child protection responses that used oppressive and controlling techniques and this increased distress. Research participants identified that there was a lack of focus on providing healing and support services for children and young people who experienced DFV and that service providers were often ill equipped to respond effectively to trauma.

This research provides an understanding of how services and systems including health and education can better hear from and respond to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people who experience domestic and family violence. While conducting the research, and as a result of the initial findings which revealed the depth of cultural knowledge and community led solutions, the research team made the decision to also develop a culturally strong practice framework to guide policymakers and practitioners. The framework, Healing our children and young people: A framework to address the impacts of domestic and family violence is available on the ANROWS website.

ANROWS, 2023. 103p.

By Sana Rehman, Memona Habib, and Saad Bin Tahir

Intimate partner violence (IPV) against men has become a serious and widespread public health issue, but limited research about the occurrence of female-to-male violence is available, as most studies on the subject have focused on female victims only. The study aims to determine the pooled prevalence and predictors of physical, emotional, and sexual violence against men across all recall periods and the potential risk factors of male victimization. Databases of PubMed, PsycINFO, PsycARTICLES, Scopus, Google Scholar, Science Direct, EMBASE, and JSTOR were searched. Data were extracted from studies published in 2010 to 2022. A systematic review and Random effect meta-analyses for the pooled prevalence were performed. Thirty studies with 58,357 participants were included in the final analysis. The pooled prevalence of Physical IPV was 20% (95% CI: 11–28%), Psychological IPV was 44% (95% CI: 30–59%), and Sexual IPV was 7% (95% CI: 3.1–10%) in Victimization for all recall periods, respectively. Findings demonstrated psychological IPV as the most prevalent form of IPV among men, which suggests that effective attempts are required to develop related prevention programs for victims. Furthermore, gender, age, substance abuse, socioeconomic status, multiple sex partners, history of abuse, and childhood victimization were found to be the predictors of IPV among men. Implementations of policies are also needed to reduce IPV. The findings of the study were discussed in terms of counselling and interventions.

Violence and Gender: Volume: 10 Issue 4: December 8, 2023

By Jasmine B. MacDonald, Melissa Willoughby, Pragya Gartoulla, Eliza Cotton, Evita March, Kristel Alla, Cat Strawa

Overview - Coercive control is the ongoing and repetitive use of behaviours or strategies (including physical and non-physical violence) to control a current or ex intimate partner (i.e. victim-survivor) and make them feel inferior to, and dependent on, the perpetrator (Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety [ANROWS], 2021). Coercive control is a relatively new area to policy, practice and research and the research evidence is still emerging. However, AIFS’ consultations with key stakeholders in the child and family sector identified coercive control as a key topic of interest for policy makers and practitioners and that there is a desire for a synthesis of current evidence. This paper synthesises the findings of a rapid literature review to describe what we know about how common coercive control victimisation is, as well as risk factors and impacts of coercive control victimisation. A victim-survivor is someone who has experienced coercive control victimisation (i.e. been the target of coercive control behaviours by a current or ex intimate partner). The term victim-survivor is used to acknowledge ‘the ongoing effects and harm caused by abuse and violence as well as honouring the strength and resilience of people with lived experience of family violence’ (Victorian Government, 2022). The fndings of the rapid literature review are presented in 3 chapters: How common is coercive control victimisation? Risk factors associated with coercive control victimisation Impacts associated with coercive control victimisation. The key findings for each of these results sections are summarised in the subsections below. Please refer to the full chapter for more detail, including the evidence synthesis of relevant research studies and implications for practice, research and policy. Key messages Quality of coercive control victimisation research The studies sampled in this review provide important foundational insights about coercive control victimisation but had some limitations. These limitations were related to the relatively early stage of research on coercive control victimisation and the practical barriers associated with research in a complex area of human experience. Based on our review, we made the following observations about the state of evidence on coercive control victimisation in Australia: ƒ There is a need for research specifc to the Australian context. Only a small proportion of the sampled studies (3 out of 13; 23%) explored Australian experiences. ƒ We currently know little about the unique experiences of: – Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples – people with disability – LGBTQIA+ communities – culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities – people in older age groups (65+ years) – children and young people where there is coercive control between their parents – intersectional experiences across more than one of the above. ƒ There is debate among researchers and experts about what exactly coercive control victimisation is and how it should be conceptualised: Some studies emphasised the gendered nature of coercive control and others did not. – Some studies have not used a measure of coercive control but rather a measure of domestic and family violence (DFV), sometimes from a previous study. In such instances, coercive control victimisation is often considered to be synonymous with the experience of psychological or emotional abuse behaviours as distinct from experiences of physical or sexual violence in the DFV measures. – Others, such as Stark and colleagues (Stark, 2007; Stark & Hester, 2019) and ANROWS (2021), conceptualise coercive control as the context in which intimate partner violence (IPV) occurs, meaning that physical and sexual violence are considered behaviours to enact coercive control (when not occurring in isolated incidence-based abuse). – Most studies (70%) used customised measurements of coercive control victimisation (i.e. measures constructed by the authors for the purpose of the study). Standardised and psychometrically validated measures were used by only 4 of the 13 sampled studies. ƒ Research design diferences between studies make it challenging to: – distinguish between IPV characterised by a coercive control pattern and that which is not – identify coercive control in practice – inform prevention and intervention – know which risk factors and impacts are most robust and deserving of further investigation. ƒ Most studies used a cross-sectional survey method for data collection. These studies cannot demonstrate changes for specific individuals over time or indicate coercive control victimization causing a change in outcomes such as mental health within the sampled participants. A longitudinal research design is required to demonstrate such changes and potential causation. ƒ Studies were also characterized by: – self-report data – large differences in sample sizes – an absence of demographic and other relevant social variables in analyses – a broad range of risk factors and impact measures, with little consistency of measures or replication of findings – a tendency to focus on individual-level factors associated with victimization, without equal consideration of broader institutional or societal levels.

Southbank VIC 3006 Australia Australian Institute of Family Studies, 2024 42p.

By Violence Policy Center

 Intimate partner violence against women is all too common and takes many forms. The most serious is homicide by an intimate partner. Guns can easily turn domestic violence into domestic homicide. One federal study on homicide among intimate partners found that female intimate partners are more likely to be murdered with a firearm than all other means combined, concluding that “the figures demonstrate the importance of reducing access to firearms in households affected by IPV [intimate partner violence].” Guns are also often used in non-fatal domestic violence. A study by Harvard School of Public Health researchers analyzed gun use at home and concluded that “hostile gun displays against family members may be more common than gun use in self-defense, and that hostile gun displays are often acts of domestic violence directed against women.” The U.S. Department of Justice has found that women are far more likely to be the victims of violent crimes committed by intimate partners than men, especially when a weapon is involved. Moreover, women are much more likely to be victimized at home than in any other place.5 A woman must consider the risks of having a gun in her home, whether she is in a domestic violence situation or not. While two thirds of women who own guns acquired them “primarily for protection against crime,” the results of a California analysis show that “purchasing a handgun provides no protection against homicide among women and is associated with an increase in their risk for intimate partner homicide.” A 2003 study about the risks of firearms in the home found that females living with a gun in the home were nearly three times more likely to be murdered than females with no gun in the home. Finally, another study reports, women who were murdered were more likely, not less likely, to have purchased a handgun in the three years prior to their deaths, again invalidating the idea that a handgun has a protective effect against homicide. While this study does not focus solely on domestic violence homicide or guns, it provides a stark reminder that domestic violence and guns make a deadly combination. According to reports submitted to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), firearms are rarely used to kill criminals or stop crimes.9 Instead, they are all too often used to inflict harm on the very people they were intended to protect.

Washington, DC: Violence Policy Center. 2022, 27pg

By Nikita Lalwani

For much of the twentieth century, the United States did little to help repatriate looted antiquities, thanks to a powerful coalition of art collectors, museums, and numismatists who preferred an unregulated art market. Today, however, the country treats the protection of cultural property as an important national-security issue. What changed? This Essay tells the story of how a confluence of events—including the high-profile destruction and looting of cultural property in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the revelation that looted antiquities were helping to bankroll terrorist organizations in the Middle East—convinced both Congress and the State Department to take the issue seriously. It then asks what this shift says about how the United States sets its policy agenda and reflects on how cultural property law should evolve from here.

Yale Law Journal, VOLUME 130, 2020-2021

By Lis Bates and Marianne Hester

This paper assesses the design and use of protection orders for domestic violence in England and Wales. It draws on data from 400 police classified domestic violence incidents and 65 interviews with victims/survivors, as well as new analysis of government justice data from England and Wales, to address a gap in literature on protection orders.

The paper identifies an increasing civil-criminal ‘hybridisation’ of protection orders in England and Wales, and argues that a dual regime has developed, with orders issued by police and/or in criminal proceedings increasingly privileged (and enforced) over victim-led civil orders. Whilst protection orders are being used – as intended – flexibly to protect domestic violence victims, the way they are applied in practice risks downgrading domestic violence in criminal justice terms.

The conclusions are especially timely in light of current Government proposals to rationalise protection orders by introducing a single overarching Domestic Abuse Protection Order in England and Wales.

Bristol, UK: Centre for Gender and Violence Research University of Bristol , 2020. 41p.

By Ana Speed and Kayliegh Richardson

Occupation orders are the dedicated legal remedy through which victims of domestic abuse can be supported to remain in the family home following a relationship breakdown. Case law indicates, however, that victims experience barriers to securing orders due to the high threshold criteria and because concerns about protecting the rights of perpetrators has led to judicial reluctance to grant extensive protection to victims. The options for providing protection to victims of abuse in respect of the family home are shortly set to be reformed by the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, which creates a new Domestic Abuse Protection Order (DAPO). It is anticipated that DAPOs will be easier to secure because they will have a lower threshold criteria, they will be available in family, civil and criminal proceedings, and both victims and third parties will be able to make an application thereby alleviating the burden on victims who feel unable to take any action. Whilst there is no intention at this point to repeal occupation orders, the Home Office has acknowledged that ‘DAPOs will become the ‘go to’ protective order in cases of domestic abuse’ suggesting that occupation orders will be replaced by DAPOs in most cases.

By drawing on data obtained from an analysis of court statistics, a questionnaire of legal practitioners and domestic abuse specialists, and in-depth interviews with victims of domestic abuse, this paper offers original empirical insights into where the current law fails victims of domestic abuse. The analysis reveals three key barriers to securing occupation orders. Firstly, despite the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 making efforts to preserve legal aid for victims of domestic abuse, the means test is difficult for victims to satisfy, resulting in increases both to the number of victims taking no action to pursue protection and who act as litigants in person in occupation order proceedings. Secondly, the prospects of a victim securing protection can be adversely affected by their unrepresented status. Thirdly, despite case law indicating a less restrictive approach to granting occupation orders, many victims continue to struggle to satisfy the strict threshold criteria. Some judges are seemingly willing to bypass this by granting alternative remedies which may offer victims a weaker form of protection in respect of the family home. Where orders are granted, the data suggest this is on restricted terms and for limited durations which reduce their effectiveness at preventing post-separation abuse and supporting victims to regulate their short and longer-term housing situation. These empirical findings are then situated within a discussion of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021. The authors analyse whether forthcoming DAPOs are likely to offer a more accessible and effective form of protection than occupation orders. The analysis suggests that by increasing the scope of applicants, the breadth and flexibility of available protection and the sanctions for breach, DAPOs have the potential to remedy many of the existing barriers to securing protection over the family home. As is always the case with new legislation however, the key will be in its implementation, to ensure that existing issues are not simply transferred across to the new regime. The findings are novel because academic commentaries on protective injunctions typically focus on ‘personal protection’ offered by non-molestation orders, domestic violence protection orders, and restraining orders, meaning that both occupation orders and protection for victims in respect of the family home are under-researched areas of domestic abuse.

Journal of Criminal Law Volume 86, Issue 3 Jun 2022 Pages 145-220

By Christine Acosta Weirich

In the aftermath of the Arab Spring in 2011, many nations in the Cradle of Civilization faced civil unrest, much of which continues today in the form of the ongoing Syrian Civil War, the conflict in Yemen, and instability in nations such as Iraq and Turkey. As a consequence, antiquities and cultural heritage in the region are currently facing a notoriously exacerbated level of risk. Despite the looting and destruction of cultural objects and monuments presenting a longstanding global and historical trend, the field of antiquities trafficking research lacks a unique and effective perspective within its current body of work and research. Likewise, criminology as a scientific field of study has largely overlooked the complex issue of looting and trafficking of cultural objects. This thesis focuses on the issue of Antiquities Trafficking Networks from a crime prevention perspective and attempts to demonstrate the effectiveness and apt nature of Crime Script Analysis and Situational Crime Prevention. This is accomplished first with a study and analysis of the wider phenomenon of Antiquities Trafficking Networks (from looting to market), followed by a specific case study of antiquities trafficked from within Syria since the beginning of the Civil War. Following these analyses, thirteen prominent Situational Crime Prevention strategies for Antiquities Trafficking Networks, and ten strategies for future conflict zones are generated by this research project. Through these strategies, Crime Script Analysis – in conjunction with Situational Crime Prevention – has proven to be a highly effective and efficient method and framework for studying this particularly difficult field. Ultimately, this thesis proposes a new crime prevention-focused methodology, to help tackle the issue of antiquities trafficking, as well as presenting one of the first prevention-specific analyses in this area. In doing so, it offers a basic model that maps the structure and necessary elements for antiquities trafficking to occur and allows for future research projects to adapt or customize this script model to situation-specific cases of antiquities looting, transit, and marketing.

Ph.D. Thesis. Glasgow: University of Glasgow, 2018. 312p.

By Michaela Millinder

KEY FINDINGS

• Illicit actors, including terrorists, target cultural heritage and soft targets for a myriad of motivations: for financial gain and to diversify revenue streams, to validate their narratives or propaganda, and to systematically erase communities’ collective identities, both to subjugate these societies and re-write and control their histories. These seemingly divergent motivations are not exclusive, and the same illicit actor can destroy cultural heritage for propaganda and profit from its sale.

• The intentional destruction of cultural heritage, which is a war crime, often occurs concurrently with other human rights abuses and is a condition that can be conducive to genocide. It can furthermore hinder post-conflict recovery and peacebuilding efforts.

• Due to the inherent aspects of cultural heritage and soft targets, protection challenges include: tensions in balancing security and civilian access to sites or public spaces, lack of awareness and education on the risks to cultural heritage, the multiplicity of actors involved in cultural heritage management and, at times, the difficulty in securing their engagement, siloed responses, limited resources, and state involvement in the targeting and destruction of cultural heritage.

• Risk assessments, information sharing, cross-sectoral and agency partnerships, educational and awareness raising efforts, including on the threats facing cultural heritage, and prosecutions and international accountability mechanisms have all been utilized as good protection practices and responses.

• Recommendations: Share risk assessments locally, regionally, and globally across relevant sectors and agencies with adequate international assistance; align soft target and critical infrastructure protection efforts; prioritize targeted education and public awareness on the importance of protecting cultural heritage and threats facing it; build capacity of stakeholders involved in protection efforts; and pursue accountability for cultural heritage destruction, including antiquities trafficking, and enforce penalties for violations.

New York: Soufan Center, 2024 26p.

By: Felix Soldner, Bennett Kleinberg, and Shane D Johnson

Counterfeits harm consumers, governments, and intellectual property holders. They accounted for 3.3% of worldwide trades in 2016, having an estimated value of $509 billion in the same year. While estimations are mostly based on border seizures, we examined openly labeled counterfeits on darknet markets, which allowed us to gather and analyze information from a different perspective. Here, we analyzed data from 11 darknet markets for the period Jan-2014 and Sep-2015. The findings suggest that darknet markets harbor similar counterfeit product types as found in seizures but that the share of watches is higher and lower for electronics, clothes, shoes, and Tobacco on darknet markets. Also, darknet market counterfeits seem to have similar shipping origins as seized goods, with some exceptions, such as a relatively high share (5%) of dark market counterfeits originating from the US. Lastly, counterfeits on dark markets tend to have a relatively low price and sales volume. However, based on preliminary estimations, the original products on the surface web seem to be worth a multiple of the prices of the counterfeit counterparts on darknet markets. Gathering insights about counterfeits from darknet markets can be valuable for businesses and authorities and be cost-effective compared to border seizures. Thus, monitoring darknet markets can help us understand the counterfeit landscape better.

Crime Science (2023) 12:18

By Coen Teunissen and Sarah Napier

We analysed the chat logs of seven Australia-based men who had committed 145 child sexual abuse (CSA) live streaming offences, to examine the overlap between this offending, contact sexual offending and engagement with child sexual abuse material (CSAM).

Four CSA live streaming offenders attempted to travel to offend against victims in person, in that they discussed travelling or actually booked flights in order to meet these children. Offenders also requested or received images and videos of victims they had viewed over live stream, and recorded live streams to produce CSAM.

Travelling to offend against children, use of CSAM and CSA live streaming appear to be interrelated and should be considered by law enforcement as potential risk factors for one another. Further, detection and removal of new CSAM, and scanning of live streams for abusive content, should be a priority for all electronic service providers.

Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 671. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2023. 16p.

By Charlotte Hunn, Paul Watters, Jeremy Prichard, Richard Wortley, Joel Scanlan, Caroline Spiranovic and Tony Krone

Online CSAM offending is a challenge for law enforcement, policymakers and child welfare organisations alike. The use of online warning messages to prevent or deter an individual when they actively search for CSAM is gaining traction as a response to some types of CSAM offending. Yet, to date, the technical question of how warning messages can be implemented, and who can implement them, has been largely unexplored. To address this, we use a case study to analyse the actions individuals and organisations within the technology, government, non-government and private sectors could take to implement warning messages. We find that, from a technical perspective, there is considerable opportunity to implement warning messages, although further research into efficacy and cost is needed.

Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 669. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2023. 14p.

By Anthony Morgan, Timothy Cubitt and Christopher Dowling

In this paper we explore the prevalence and patterns of recorded domestic violence offending among outlaw motorcycle gang (OMCG) members in New South Wales. We then compare domestic violence offending among a sample of OMCG members and other male offenders who committed their first recorded offence in the same year.

Forty percent of OMCG members had been proceeded against for a domestic violence offence in the last 10 years. OMCG members were twice as likely to have been proceeded against for domestic violence offences as the wider male offending population. Domestic violence offending by OMCG members was more harmful and charges were less likely to result in a guilty outcome.

OMCG members have a greater propensity for violence and this includes domestic violence. This research has implications for law enforcement and domestic violence support services.

Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 670. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2023. 17p.

By Siobhan Lawler, Hayley Boxall and Christopher Dowling

Previous research has shown that persons with depression are over-represented among perpetrators of intimate partner homicide (IPH). However, the relationship between IPH and depression is not well understood. This study explores the role of offender depression within a sample of 199 cases of male-perpetrated IPH in Australia, as described by judges in sentencing remarks. Over one-third of the IPH offenders had experienced depression at some point in their lifetime. Qualitative information about the onset and cause of depression, co-occurring risk factors and the relationship between depression and culpability is presented. Findings show that depression alone holds limited explanatory value for understanding IPH, and must be considered in the context of other co-occurring risk factors

Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 672. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2023. 16p.

By Christopher Dowling, Heather Wolbers, Anthony Morgan and Cameron Long

This study examines how accurately the refined Family Violence Risk Assessment Tool (FVRAT) predicts repeat domestic violence. Developed on the basis of a previous validation study of an earlier, much longer version of the tool, the refined FVRAT consists of 10 checkbox items, along with sections recording victim and officer judgements. These are used to inform police responses in the Australian Capital Territory.

A sample of over 450 unique reports of violence involving current and former intimate partners between March and December 2020 in which police used the refined FVRAT were examined. Repeat domestic violence was measured based on whether a subsequent report of domestic violence was made to police within six months.

Consistent with the previous study, the refined FVRAT predicts repeat domestic violence at least moderately well. Victim judgements were also shown to enhance the tool’s ability to correctly identify repeat domestic violence, although the findings also suggest some caution is warranted in using these judgements.

Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 674. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2023. 18p.

By Isabella Voce and Anthony Morgan

This study analyses data from a survey of Australian adult computer users conducted in June 2021 to examine the influence of online routine activities and life stressors on the likelihood of profit-motivated cybercrime victimisation.

Compared with non-victims, victims spent more time online, more frequently engaged in recreational online activities and were more likely to employ higher-risk online practices. Small-to-medium enterprise owners working from home were more likely to be victims. Respondents who had experienced recent increases in financial stress and gambling and negative impacts on interpersonal relationships during the COVID-19 pandemic were also more likely to be a victim of cybercrime.

Being accessible online and a lack of personal and physical guardianship are associated with an increased risk of being a victim, but other factors may influence the susceptibility of computer users to cybercrime victimisation. This has important implications for cybercrime responses

Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 675. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2023. 18p.