Crime in Australia

A number of state, territory and federal agencies also administer a wide variety of legislation related to white-collar crime.

[citation needed] In addition to the standard prisons run by the states (and not included in prisoner statistics), the Department of Home Affairs also operates a separate system of Australian immigration detention facilities to detain non-citizens who have breached the terms of or lack a visa.

[3] Some of these immigration detention centres are used to indefinitely detain[4] asylum seekers and refugees, often without trial and in many cases for several years.

[4] During the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, large numbers of convicts were transported to the various Australian penal colonies by the UK Government.

[5] One of the primary reasons for the British settlement of Australia was the establishment of a penal colony to alleviate pressure on their overburdened correctional facilities.

Australia's first civilian crime prevention force was established in August 1789, comprising a twelve-man nightwatch authorised to patrol the settlement at Sydney Cove and with powers "for the apprehending and securing for examination" anyone suspected of "felony, trespass or misdemeanour.

Bushrangers were originally escaped convicts in the early years of the British settlement of Australia who used the Australian bush as a refuge to hide from the authorities.

Bushranging thrived during the gold rush years of the 1850s and 1860s when the likes of Ben Hall, Frank Gardiner and John Gilbert led notorious gangs in the country districts of New South Wales.

Civil disturbances and prison riots, have occurred throughout the history of European settlement in Australia, a selection of which follows: The Australian Institute of Criminology hosts an interactive gateway to statistics and information on Australian crime and justice issues, called Crime Statistics Australia.

[11] Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) shows that during the 2009/10 year police took action against 375,259 people,[13] up by 4.8 percent from 2008/09 figures.

[13] About 30 percent of the women were accused of theft, whereas the most common principal offence for men was intention to cause injury and matters related to public order.

[19] Research from the Australian Institute of Criminology showed that from 1990 until the middle of 2011, 40 percent of people who were fatally shot by police were suffering from a mental illness.

The issue is a complex one, to which federal and state governments as well as Indigenous groups have responded with various analyses and numerous programs and measures.