Criminology Research

An estimated 41,000 people in Australia are victims of modern slavery, with university students a key vulnerable population.

Educating for Change is a ground-breaking program that aims to equip future professionals with the skills to identify and combat modern slavery in their fields while supporting university staff in addressing modern slavery in their current roles.

Researchers and partners:

• Professor Marinella Marmo

Funder: Commonwealth Attorney’s General Department

This project investigates the harms experienced by women in Australia’s gig economy.

This study aims to explore how the pay gap affects women’s lives, examine discrimination and intersectionality, uncover the presence and consequences of algorithmic bias, and document safety concerns and harassment. By addressing critical evidence gaps, the project will inform inclusive policy and platform regulation, ensuring safer, fairer, and more equitable conditions for women in gig work across Australia.

Researchers and partners:

• Professor Marinella Marmo
• Dr Sahana Sakar

Funder:  SA Law Foundation

People exiting prison following short custodial stays have high levels of health and social needs, but that many of those needs are not being met.

This project co-designs a digital ‘wayfinding’ app as a tool to connect social and health service providers and correctional staff in Port Lincoln. The program aims to improve reintegration outcomes by enhancing the knowledge and efficiency of correctional staff and social and health service providers, thereby improving connection to available supports for those exiting prison.

Researchers and partners:

• Associate Professor Caitlin Hughes
• Dr Melissa de Vel-Palumbo
• Professor Mark Halsey
• Dr Simone Deegan
• Ms Jenna Mizzi 
• Ian Goodwin-Smith 
• Mark Ferraretto
• Jen Cleary

Funder: Department for Correctional Services SA

There is growing policy interest in the alternative to arrest policies for minor offences. This project is evaluating the South Australian Police Drug Diversion Initiative - one of the longest running police-led drug diversion programs in the world, that affords health interventions instead of court for minor drug use and possession offenders. This project is providing the first comprehensive analysis of trends, characteristics, rates of compliance and re-diversion and specific insights into the impacts of a 2019 legislative change. The project will provide evidence to improve policy and practice and expand the use of alternatives to arrest within and outside this state.

Researchers and partners:

• Associate Professor Caitlin Hughes
• Mr Gene Mercer
• Professor Jacqueline Bowden 
• Drug and Alcohol Services South Australia
• SA Police and State Reference Group

Funder: Preventive Health South Australia 

Australia’s prison sector costs $6B per year with half of all people released returning to prison within two years of release. Current models of criminal behaviour only tell us why people reoffend. What is missing is knowledge about how and why people stop offending and the role imprisonment itself plays in that process. This Fellowship will examine how a strength-based approach influences levels of prisoner and staff safety, prisoners’ personal identity change, and prisoners’ social connections within and beyond custody. The project will benefit Australia by building safer communities, reducing policing and prison costs, and improving the lives of Australians who have spent time in prison.

Researchers and partners:

• Professor Mark Halsey
• Corrective Services NSW

Funder: Australian Research Council  

Recent evidence suggests that crystal methamphetamine use has been increasing across Australia, especially in regional communities. However, there is limited knowledge about the scale and impacts of the methamphetamine market in regional areas. 

Through a cross-state project in SA, NSW and Victoria this project will provide the first comprehensive analysis of methamphetamine supply, use and harms within rural and regional Australia and generate new insights to reduce methamphetamine harms. 

Researchers and partners:

• Associate Professor Caitlin Hughes
• Professor Mark Halsey
• Mr Hamid Azizi
• Professor Jacqueline Bowden 
• Dr Gianluca Di Censo 

Funder: Australian Research Council

As more people serve sentences in the community, a key question is how supervision can support meaningful change, creating a safer and more rehabilitative alternative to custody. This project compares probation and parole practices in Australia and Germany, examining how cultural, social, and legal contexts shape supervision approaches and outcomes.

The findings offer insights for informing evidence-based improvements to community corrections.

Researchers and partners:

• Dr Melissa de Vel-Palumbo
• Dr Verena Oberlader 

Funder: Flinders University – Early Career Research Impact Seed Grant

Young women in youth detention are subject to care, treatment, and conditions primarily designed for the dominant population, young men. As a result, young women are provided interventions that do not address their needs, increasing their vulnerability to harm and reducing the likelihood of positive outcomes. 

This project will identify opportunities and seek to improve care for girls and young women in youth detention by ensuring practices are both gender and trauma responsive.

Researchers and partners:

• Dr Simone Deegan
• Ms Belinda Lorek
• Shona Reid

Funder: Australian Research Council – ECR Industry Fellowship