By David Bright, Chad Whelan and Carlo Morselli

A large volume of criminal offending involves two or more individuals acting collaboratively. In recent years, much contemporary research on group crime has integrated research on co-offending with the study of criminal networks. However, while this research (mostly from the United States and Canada) is generating significant insights into co-offending, there is a notable absence of research on co-offending and co-offending networks in Australia. This report presents the findings of a study into co-offending using arrest data from Melbourne, Australia. The study sought to extend previous work on co-offending by analysing the range of crime types committed by individuals and co-offenders across co-offending networks.

Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 597. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2020. 21p.

By Matteo Vergani,  Angelique Stefanopoulos, Alexandra Lee, Haily Tran, Imogen Richards, Dan Goodhardt, Greg Barton

Bias indicators – that is, facts, circumstances, or patterns that suggest that an act was motivated in whole or in part by bias – can be a useful tool for stakeholders working on tackling hate crimes. Government and non-government agencies can use them to improve and standardise data collection around hate crimes, which can have a cascade of positive effects. For example, they can help to demonstrate in court the prejudice motivation of a crime – and we know that this is often hard in Australia, because the legislation has a very high threshold of proving hateful motivation. They can also improve the precision of measurements of the prevalence of hate crimes in communities, which is necessary for planning appropriate mitigation policies and programmes and for assessing their impact. Bias indicators can also be useful for non-government organisations to make sure that their data collection and research is reliable, consistent and a powerful tool for advocacy and education. We acknowledge that bias indicators can be misused: for example, our lists are not to be read as exhaustive, and users should take them as examples only. Also, incidents can present bias indicators from multiple lists, and coders should not stop at trying to code the incident as targeting one identity only. Importantly, our bias indicators lists should not be used by practitioners to make an assessment of whether an incident is bias motivated or not. The absence of bias indicators does not mean that an incident is not hate motivated – if a victim or a witness perceives that there was a prejudice-motivation. At the same time, the presence of a bias indicator does not necessarily demonstrate that an incident is bias motivated (as the term ‘indicator’ implies). Ultimately, a judge will make this decision. In the Australian context, we are proposing that bias indicators should be used to support data collection, and to make sure that all potentially useful evidence is collected when an incident is reported. This report is structured in two parts: in Part 1, we introduce and discuss the concept of bias indicators, including their uses, benefits, and risks. In Part 2, we present a general list of bias indicators (which might be used to code a hate  motivated incident), followed by discrete lists of bias indicators for specific target identities. We also present a separate list for online bias indicators, which might apply to one or more target identities. We are keen to engage with government and non-government agencies that plan to use bias indicators and find this report useful. We welcome opportunities to share additional insights from our research on how 

Melbourne: Centre for Resilient and Inclusive Societies. 2022. 40p.

By Mario Peucker

In September 2016, one of the leading figures of Australia’s far-right movement – a man who had publicly expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler and was later dubbed ‘emperor’ by the extreme right-wing terrorist who murdered 51 Muslims in Christchurch in 2019 – appeared on ABC Triple J television to talk about ‘Aussie Patriotism’. Unsurprisingly, he used this opportunity to make ideological claims around an allegedly corrupt political system, white victimhood, and ‘national pride’ that makes people ‘want to fight’ in a war that is
supposedly being waged against them. The TV guest was well-known for his views at the time, and he would later become the first person ever convicted of serious religious vilification under Victoria’s Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001 for staging a public mock beheading in Bendigo in 2015. Since then he – and other white nationalists and supremacists – have been given opportunities to share their views in mainstream media until almost two years later. In August 2018, he was invited to a live on-air interview on Sky News where he was asked about his views on Donald Trump and immigration issues. Again, he used this public platform to share his stance on national pride, identity and white victimhood. Although his nationalist and “white pride” dog-whistle statements were arguably less inciting and explicit compared to his appearance on ABC
Triple J in 2016, this time there was a broad public outcry, even from within Sky News. The broadcaster admitted the interview was a mistake and removed it from its online services, although the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) later ruled it did not constitute a breach of the respective code of practice. The critical public awareness around issues of platforming far-right extremists and their ideological messages has clearly increased over the years, and many editors and journalists have come to recognise the potential risks and problems of doing so. As a result, prominent white supremacists are no longer treated by Australia mainstream media as legitimate voices that deserve to be heard in broader public
debates. This does not mean, however, that they are no longer given any airtime and media attention. Some media outlets continue to offer them an opportunity to present their views, and many other media report about them and their far-right actions. Incidents involving far-right actors, both overseas and domestically, and their actions –from small-scale public stunts and online mobilisation to violent assaults and even in some instances acts of terrorism – have become frequent occurrences. This poses challenges for the media, and news reporting in particular, around ethical and practical questions of newsworthiness and public interest, the risks of amplifying hateful ideological propaganda or unintentionally helping with far-right extremists’ recruitment efforts, but also considerations of personal safety for journalists. The comprehensive report Inquiry into extremism in Victoria, tabled by the Legislative Council Legal and Social Issues Committee of
the Victorian state parliament in August 2022, dedicates significant attention to the role of mainstream media within the chapter ‘Risk factors for far‐right extremism in Victoria’. Acknowledging that ‘newsworthiness and public interest are primary drivers of the media’s coverage of violent extremism’, the report highlights several ‘ethical concerns consequently arise around responsible reporting by the media’. These include, according to the report: ‘dilemmas around what to report or ignore; the moral and legal quandaries of relating with, or amplifying the ideology of, an extremist group; the difficulties 

Melbourne: Centre for Resilient and Inclusive Societies. May 2023. 15p.

By Kevin Dunn, Jehonathan Ben, Rachel Sharples, Nida Denson, Amanuel Elias, Fethi Mansouri, Craig McGarty, Yin Paradies, Öznur Şahin

The research addresses the relatively neglected subject of anti-racism in Australia. Forms of day-to-day anti-racism action and prosocial intercultural interaction already exist, often in public and semi-public places. Yet they have received little attention in anti-racism research and practice, programs, and policymaking. To our knowledge, this is the first global survey to examine everyday anti-racism practices on such a large scale, and the first to quantitatively measure 'transversal enabler' practices, for creating connections between people from different cultural backgrounds who inhabit the same locality. The research maps the frequencies and forms of everyday anti-racism and prosocial attitudes and interaction in Victoria; identifies the factors and social variations that underlie everyday action; and explores transversal enabler practices quantitatively, including their prevalence. It indicates a gap between positive dispositions towards cultural diversity and actual involvement in practices that foster social transformation. We suggest that Victorians can do better on everyday pro-sociality and make a series of recommendations on strategies to inform anti-racism practice, program, and policies for more meaningful and deeper intercultural engagement.

Burwood, Victoria, AUS: Alfred Deakin University, Centre for Resilient and Inclusive Societies, 2024. 39p.

MAY CONTAIN MARKUP

BY PETER SUTTON and KERYN WALSHE

The ongoing debate sparked by "Dark Emu" by Bruce Pascoe delves into the historical perception of Indigenous Australians as either farmers or hunter-gatherers. Pascoe's book challenges the traditional view of Indigenous communities as solely hunter-gatherers by presenting evidence of sophisticated farming practices. This controversial interpretation has ignited discussions among scholars, historians, and the general public, raising questions about the true nature of pre-colonial Aboriginal societies. As the debate continues to unfold, it prompts us to reconsider our understanding of Australia's rich indigenous history and the complex relationship between humans and the land.

Melbourne. Melbourne University Press. 2021. 287p.

By  Jacob Davey, Cécile Simmons, Mario Peucker

The re-emergence of Australia’s far-right in the mid-2010s saw an unprecedented level of online mobilisation and a wave of street protests across the country which were often met with counter-protests by anti-racist and anti-fascist networks, most of them associated with far-left groups. This often resulted in clashes, sometimes violent, between opposed political groups. Potentially violent threats associated with the far-right and, to a significantly lower degree, far-left mobilisation in Australia have become the subject of growing concern for government- and public authorities in recent years.  This demonstrates a shift in understanding of the radical, extremist and terrorist landscape beyond what Australia’s intelligence apparatus now refers to as religiously motivated violent extremism. However, evidence of threats posed by far-left actions remains limited, while the full extent and impact of far-right fringe and extremist activity continues to be investigated by researchers.

Beirut; Berlin; London; Paris; Washington DC : Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), 2022. 19p.

By Umar Butler

This report, commissioned by the Islamic Council of Victoria (ICV), argues that the failure of social media platforms to improve their demonstrably ineffectual systems for the review of hateful material, coupled with the grave harms of online Islamophobia, necessitates government intervention.

While there are a number of competing approaches to the regulation of social media, the ICV’s preference is to reform the systems that have enabled and, indeed, at times encouraged the widespread and unchecked dissemination of hate speech, rather than attempt the practically impossible task of taking down hundreds of millions of individual pieces of anti-Muslim content.

To implement this approach, the ICV proposes that Australia place a statutory duty on platforms to take reasonable care to protect users from harm (the ‘eSafety duty of care’), similar to the regime set to be established by the UK’s Online Safety Bill 2021. Regardless of the particular regulatory response taken, however, this report makes clear that something must be done. If not to improve the mental wellbeing of Muslim users, then at least to ensure that the events of the Christchurch attacks are never repeated.

Melbourne:Islamic Council of Victoria, 2022. 23p.

By Frances S. Hasso

Race, Reproduction, and Death in Modern Palestine.. Bringing together a vivid array of analog and nontraditional sources, including colonial archives, newspaper reports, literature, oral histories, and interviews, Buried in the Red Dirt tells a story of life, death, reproduction, and missing bodies and experiences during and since the British colonial period in Palestine. Using transnational feminist reading practices of existing and new archives, the book moves beyond authorized frames of collective pain and heroism.

Cambridge University Press (2021) 288 pages.

By Adele Chynoweth orcid

A History of Children in a Queensland Mental Asylum. Series: Aboriginal History Monographs. Goodna Girls tells the story of children incarcerated in Wolston Park Hospital, an adult psychiatric facility in Queensland, Australia. It contains the personal testimonies of women who relate—in their own no-holds-barred style and often with irreverent humour—how they, as children, ended up in Wolston Park and how this affected their adult lives. The accounts of hospital staff who witnessed the effects of this heinous policy and spoke out are also included.

Canberra. ANU Press (2020).