Library Resources for Criminology & Justice: News and Events

The stories listed on this bulletin are provided for information purposes only. They are included to reflect current events and community opinion relating to issues studied by students at ACAP. They do not reflect the views of ACAP.

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Alcohol available for consumption in Australia
AIHW, 08/11/24
The largest change between 2019–20 and 2022–23 was a 22% increase in the amount of alcohol from spirits being made available for consumption, from 44.2 million litres to 53.8 million litres of pure alcohol. 

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Afghanistan: opium cultivation increased by 19 per cent in second year of drugs ban
UNODC, 06/11/24
The increase follows on a 95 per cent decrease in cultivation during the 2023 crop season, when the de-facto Authorities of Afghanistan enforced a ban that virtually eliminated poppy cultivation across much of the country. 

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‘Help way earlier!’ – transforming child justice 
Human Rights Commission, 2024
'Help way earlier!’ How Australia can transform child justice to improve safety and wellbeing investigates opportunities for reform of child justice and related systems across Australia based on children’s rights and sound evidence.

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Explainer: What is wildlife crime?
UNODC, 2024
Just how big of a problem is wildlife crime, and what is being done to address it? 

Family support, enriched preschool and serious youth offending By J. Allen, R. Homel, D. Vasco, & K. Freiberg
Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 700. Australian Institute of Criminology, 31/10/24
This paper investigates the effects on court-adjudicated offending to age 17 of comprehensive, community‑based support offered through the Pathways to Prevention Project to families of preschool and primary age children. The sample is 543 children from a disadvantaged region in Brisbane, 192 of whom, at age four in 2002 or 2003, participated in the standard preschool curriculum plus a program designed to strengthen oral language and communication skills, and who transitioned to a local primary school where family support remained available.

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An experimental study of support for protest causes and tactics and the influence of conspiratorial beliefs By Anthony Morgan, Timothy Cubitt, Alexandra Voce, & Isabella Voce
Trends & Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice no. 702. Australian Institute of Criminology, 29/10/24
We conducted a randomised survey experiment involving 13,301 online Australians. Respondents were asked about their support for environmental, anti-lockdown and sovereign citizen protests. They were randomly allocated to one of three groups presented with different protest tactics—peaceful marching, disrupting traffic and violent clashes with police.

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Israel passes legislation banning UNRWA and labelling it a terrorist organisation
ABC, 29/10/24
Israeli parliament passes legislation that could threaten the work of the main UN agency providing aid to people in Gaza by barring it from operating on Israeli soil.

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We analysed 35,000 Wikipedia entries about Australian places. Some of them sanitise history By Heather Ford, Francesca Sidoti, Michael Falk & Tamson Pietsch
The Conversation, 28/10/24
Wikipedia articles related to Australia are overwhelmingly centred on cities, new research has found, with negative aspects of a place sometimes “sanitised” in articles by editors – avoiding mention of discriminatory Australian government policies or violence against First Nations peoples.

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Wrongly convicted of a crime? Your ability to clear your name can come down to your postcode By Kylie Lingard
The Conversation, 28/10/24
If you’re found guilty of a crime, it’s a basic principle of Australian law that you have a right to appeal.
But having a right and being able to exercise it are two different things, especially when it comes to fresh evidence casting doubt on your conviction.

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Australian police have used the Mr Big technique to put killers behind bars — but some say the method is 'inherently dangerous' By Alicia Bridges, Ayla Darling & Dan Harrison 
ABC, 28/10/24
Unlike some other undercover stings where an officer embeds themselves in organised crime to gain intelligence on real gangs, the Mr Big method lures the suspect into a fake gang where all the crimes are simulated.

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Small amounts of drugs were decriminalised in the ACT, but it didn't turn Canberra into our party capital By Monte Bovill
ABC, 28/10/24
Last year the ACT became the first Australian jurisdiction to decriminalise small amounts of illicit drugs. One year on, what has happened in the territory? 

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"A very dangerous place': Calls for caution as ADF unveils autonomous weapons By Charmaine Manuel
ABC, 28/10/24
As governments around the world turn to artificial intelligence and autonomous weapons in conflict, human rights advocates and scientists are calling for stronger frameworks to guide their use.

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Explainer: How corruption facilitates organized crime 
UNODC, 2024
Corruption and organized crime are often intertwined, with corruption playing a pivotal role in how organized crime groups operate and expand their criminal activities while evading punishment. Corruption enables criminal groups to smuggle illicit drugs, weapons, wildlife or even people within countries and across borders while evading detection and bypassing law enforcement.