Criminology Commons^™

“Living With Life”: Experiences Of Families Of People Serving A Life Sentence In Western Australia, Hilde Tubex, Natalie Gately

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

This paper contributes to the growing body of scholarship related to the impact of imprisonment on families, from the particular perspective of parents, siblings and other close relatives of people serving a life sentence. We argue that those family members are often overlooked in research and service provision, while bearing the burden of the association with the offender. This is particularly problematic for relatives of life sentenced prisoners, having to cope with the seriousness of the offence, and the uncertainty of the perspectives of release. Based on 17 interviews conducted in Western Australia, we discuss family members’ confrontation with and …

Appearances Can Be Deceiving: How Naturalistic Changes To Target Appearance Impact On Lineup-Based Decision-Making, Dominic T. Jordan, Adrian J. Scott, Donald M. Thomson

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

The present study examined the influence of appearance, procedure and position on identification decisions, post-decisional confidence ratings and estimates of discrimination and confidence-specific accuracy. Regarding appearance, the study examined the combined influence of three naturalistic changes that occur day-to-day (i.e. a reduction in cranial hair length, the removal of stubble, and a change of clothing), two of which have not been considered before in a lineup-decision context. Participants (N = 350) completed four experimental lineups which involved: viewing a target person, completing a brief distractor task, and making an identification decision and a post-decisional confidence rating from a photographic lineup. …

Body Gaze As A Marker Of Sexual Objectification: A New Scale For Pervasive Gaze And Gaze Provocation Behaviors In Heterosexual Women And Men, Ross C. Hollett, Shane L. Rogers, Prudence Florido, Belinda Mosdell

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Body gaze behavior is assumed to be a key feature of sexual objectification. However, there are few self-report gaze measures available and none capturing behavior which seeks to invite body gaze from others. Across two studies, we used existing self-report instruments and measurement of eye movements to validate a new self-report scale to measure pervasive body gaze behavior and body gaze provocation behavior in heterosexual women and men. In Study 1, participants (N = 1021) completed a survey with newly created items related to pervasive body gaze and body gaze provocation behavior. Participants also completed preexisting measures of body attitudes, …

Assessing Alexithymia In Forensic Settings: Psychometric Properties Of The 20-Item Toronto Alexithymia Scale Among Incarcerated Adult Offenders, David A. Preece, Cate L. Parry, Maria [Ricks] M. Allan, Alfred Allan

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Background:

Alexithymia is a trait involving difficulty identifying feelings (DIF), difficulty describing feelings (DDF) and externally orientated thinking (EOT). It is a risk factor for criminal behaviour. It is commonly assessed with the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), but the psychometrics of the TAS-20 have not been tested across the range of offender populations, and it has been suggested it might be unsuitable in incarcerated offenders. Aim: To establish the psychometrics of the TAS-20 among incarcerated offenders.

Methods:

Factorial validity was examined using confirmatory factor analyses, and the invariance of this factor structure was tested against a published community sample. Reliability …

Alexithymia In Nonviolent Offenders, Cate L. Parry, David A. Preece, Maria [Ricks] M. Allan, Alfred Allan

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Background:

Alexithymia is a trait involving difficulties processing emotions. Existing data suggest it is associated with violent offending. In violent offender programmes, therefore, violent offenders are screened for alexithymia and it is attended to if necessary. No studies have, however, examined alexithymia levels in nonviolent offenders and it is, therefore, unknown whether it is also a criminogenic factor in this population.

Aims:

To investigate alexithymia levels among incarcerated nonviolent offenders and compare them with a community comparison group.

Method:

The 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale was used to compare the alexithymia levels of 67 incarcerated nonviolent offenders with a group of …

An Exploration Of The Psychological Impact Of Hacking Victimization, Alexa Palassis, Craig P. Speelman, Julie Ann Pooley

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Cybercrime has rapidly grown in prevalence and potential for harm and disruption for victims. Studies have examined the adverse psychological impact of cybercrime for victims; however, the specific effects for victims of hacking are unexplored. The present study aimed to investigate the psychological impacts of hacking victimization through exploration of the experience of victims of hacking. The study employed an in-depth phenomenological approach to explore the experiences of 11 victims of hacking. Semi-structured interviews were used as a tool for data collection, and thematic analysis of the data revealed four main themes: emotional impact; an increased sense of vulnerability; a …

Mapping Cyber-Enabled Crime: Understanding Police Investigations And Prosecutions Of Cyberstalking, Brianna Jane O'Shea, Nicole L. Asquith, Jeremy Prichard

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Stalking is one of the main types of abusive behaviour facilitated by technology. The purpose of the current study was twofold: to identify the challenges of cyberstalking investigations and prosecutions in Australia and determine how best to investigate these types of offences. A qualitative analysis of four years of interviews, focus groups and participant observations with police departments provides an overview of the cyberstalking investigative process. The findings map out the process from the initial report of the incident to the preparation of the prosecution brief. This analysis positions cyberstalking investigations as an interesting case study in the midst of …

What Are The Characteristics Of Vitamin D Metabolism In Opioid Dependence? An Exploratory Longitudinal Study In Australian Primary Care, Albert Stuart Reece, Gary Hulse

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

OBJECTIVE: Compare vitamin D levels in opioid dependence and control population and adjust for relevant confounding effects. Nuclear hormone receptors (including the vitamin D receptor) have been shown to be key transducers and regulators of intracellular metabolism and comprise an important site of pathophysiological immune and metabolic dysregulation potentially contributing towards pro-ageing changes observed in opioid-dependent patients (ODPs).

DESIGN: Longitudinal prospective comparing ODPs with general medical controls (GMCs).

SETTING: Primary care.

PARTICIPANTS: Prospective review comparing 1168 ODP (72.5% men) and 415 GMC (51.6% men, p

INTERVENTIONS: Nil. Observational study only.

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOMES: Serum vitamin D levels and relevant …

Mining Social Networking Sites For Digital Evidence, Brian Cusack, Saud Alshaifi

Australian Digital Forensics Conference

OnLine Social Networking sites (SNS) hold a vast amount of information that individuals and organisations post about themselves. Investigations include SNS as sources of evidence and the challenge is to have effective tools to extract the evidence. In this exploratory research we apply the latest version of a proprietary tool to identify potential evidence from five SNS using three different browsers. We found that each web browser influenced the scope of the evidence extracted. In previous research we have shown that different open source and proprietary tools influence the scope of evidence obtained. In this research we asked, What variation …

Understanding The Role Of Social Groups In Radicalisation, Kira Harris, Eyal Gringart, Deirdre Drake

Australian Security and Intelligence Conference

The inability to form psychological profiles of individual members across a variety of extremist groups, as well as the recognition in extremism and terrorism research indicates that no adequate personality profile exists. This requires an analysis of other factors that influence the radicalisation process. By drawing on social identity theory, this paper offers a psycho-social explanation for how people define themselves in relation to their social group, as well as how the intra-group relationships can lead to extreme behaviour and resistance to counter efforts. These groups promote a salient social identity that becomes intrinsic to the self to the extent …

The Bad Guys Are Using It, Are You?, Hong-Eng Koh

Australian Security and Intelligence Conference

From Occupy Wall Street to 2011 England riots to Arab Spring to Mumbai 26/11 to the ethnic cleansing rumors in India and increasingly used by pedophiles, social media is a very powerful tool for pedophiles, troublemakers, criminals and even terrorists to target individuals and even to go against the establishment. On the other hand, social media can save lives in a disaster, and its a natural extension of community policing or engagement. Community engagement is a must-have strategy for any public safety and security agency. However, this strategy requires the removal of stovepipe processes and systems within an agency, allowing …

I Remember Richelieu: Is Anything Secure Anymore?, Michael G. Crowley, Michael N. Johnstone

Australian Security and Intelligence Conference

Petraeus-gate, hacked nude celebrity photos in the cloud and the recent use of a search and seizure warrant in the United States of America to seek production of customer email contents on an extraterritorial server raises important issues for the supposably safe storage of data on the World Wide Web. Not only may there be nowhere to hide in cyberspace but nothing in cyberspace may be private. This paper explores the legal and technical issues raised by the these matters with emphasis on the courts decision “In the Matter of a Warrant to Search a Certain E-Mail Account Controlled and …

7th Australian Security And Intelligence Conference, 2014, Edith Cowan University: Conference Details, Security Research Institute, Edith Cowan University, Security Research Institute, Edith Cowan University

Australian Security and Intelligence Conference

No abstract provided.

Efficacy Of Property Marking: Police Identification Of Stolen Property, Craig Separovic, David J. Brooks Dr.

Australian Security and Intelligence Conference

Property marking, as a situational crime prevention technique, has found to be largely ineffectual in the reduction of property theft, although past studies have not considered the role property marking as an aid to the return of stolen or lost property. However, automotive identification and some studies have found that in some cases property marking is effective. Furthermore, many crime prevention groups focus on property marking as a means to reduce crime and the fear of crime.

Therefore, the study investigated the processes of lost, stolen and seized goods by law enforcement personnel. The study undertook a qualitative analysis of …

Prisoner Education And Training, And Other Characteristics: Western Australia, July 2005 To June 2010, Margaret Giles, Jacqui Whale

Research outputs 2011

Executive summary

Spending public funds on educating and training prisoners can generate a significant return on investment, because as this report argues, studying in prison can reduce costly recidivism and improve life outcomes for ex-prisoners. What are the costs of recidivism? Let’s start with incarceration. Prisoners cost money - about $110,000 per prisoner a year. With over 4,000 prisoners in WA prisons at any one time and a turnover of 8,000 prisoners per year, incarceration is a costly business. In addition, there are policing and legal costs related to finding, charging and sentencing alleged offenders; as well as costs to …

Review Of Indigenous Offender Health [Journal Article], Jocelyn Grace, Ineke Krom, Caitlin Maling, Tony Butler, Richard Midford

Research outputs 2011

This review provides an overview of health issues facing the Indigenous offender population, including some of the social and historical factors relevant to Indigenous health and incarceration. In doing so, it is important to first understand how Indigenous people conceptualise health. Health as it is understood in western society is a fairly discrete category, which differs from the traditional Indigenous perspective of health as holistic [1]. This is made explicit in the 1989 National Aboriginal health strategy that states 'health to Aboriginal peoples is a matter of determining all aspects of their life, including control over their physical environment, of …

Prescription Drug Use Among Detainees: Prevalence, Sources And Links To Crime, Catherine Mcgregor, Natalie Gately, Jennifer Fleming

Research outputs 2011

Concern regarding the diversion and non-medical use of prescription pharmaceuticals continues to grow as anecdotal evidence and other research points to a sizeable increase in the illegal market for such drugs. Estimating the prevalence of illegal use and understanding how pharmaceutical drugs come to be traded in the illegal drug market remain key research priorities for policymakers and practitioners in both the public health and law enforcement sectors. This report is the first of its kind in Australia to examine the self-reported use of illicit pharmaceuticals among a sample of police detainees surveyed as part of the Australian Institute of …

Firearm Forensics Based On Ballistics Cartridge Case Image Segmentation Using Colour Invariants, Dongguang Li

Australian Security and Intelligence Conference

Ballistics firearm identification based on image processing is of paramount importance in criminal investigation. The efficiency of traditional ballistics imaging system is heavily dependent upon the expertise and experience of end-user. An intelligent ballistics imaging system is highly demanded to address this issues. The segmentation of cartridge case object from the original image is a key step to subsequent process. It is very difficult to segment cartridge case from the original image using traditional threshold based methods due to the shadows or unlimited environments to acquire image. In this paper, we proposed a novel approach based upon the colour invariant …

Ballistics Image Processing And Analysis For Firearm Identification, Dongguang Li

Research outputs pre 2011

Firearm identification is an intensive and time-consuming process that requires physical interpretation of forensic ballistics evidence. Especially as the level of violent crime involving firearms escalates, the number of firearms to be identified accumulates dramatically. The demand for an automatic firearm identification system arises. This chapter proposes a new, analytic system for automatic firearm identification based on the cartridge and projectile specimens. Not only do we present an approach for capturing and storing the surface image of the spent projectiles at high resolution using line-scan imaging technique for the projectiles database, but we also present a novel and effective FFT-based …

Australian Firearm Identification System Based On The Ballistics Images Of Projectile Specimens, Dongguang Li

Research outputs pre 2011

Charactetistic markings on the cartridge case and projectile of a fired bullet are created when it is fired. Over thirty different features within these marks can be distinguished, which in combination produce a "fingerprint" for a firearm. By analyzing features within such a set of fireann :fingerprints, it will be possible to identify not only the type and model of a fireann, but also each every individual weapon as effectively as human :fingerprint identification. A new analytic system based on fast Fourier transform (FFT) for identifying the projectile specimens by the line-scan imaging technique is proposed in this paper. Experimental …