Marissa McCall, Jenny Mouzos and Toni Makkai present both self-report and urinalysis data from participating detainees for the calendar year 2003. They provide an overview of the characteristics of the detainees at each site, including self-reported drug use, prior criminal behaviour and treatment history. An addendum on violence in the home was run in the...

The legality of different forms of detention continues to be a prominent national issue. In August 2004, the High Court of Australia said the continued and potentially indefinite detention of failed asylum seekers who had asked to leave but had nowhere to go was constitutionally valid. A related issue is the constitutional validity of the...

There are differences between, and among, people in ethnic communities. Judith Miralles seeks to provide a more nuanced snapshot of vocational education and training (VET) participation and completion rates among Arabic, Bosnian, Cantonese, Spanish, Turkish, and Vietnamese communities. She also investigates the effectiveness of English as a second language programs as a pathway to training...

There has been a significant growth in poverty in Australia over the last decade. At the time of this report's release a consensus of estimates puts the number of people living in poverty at between two and three and a half million. In reporting on this inquiry into poverty the Senate Community Affairs References Committee...

In this paper Zhigang Wei, Toni Makkai and Kiah McGregor report on 493 juveniles detained by police and interviewed as part of the Drug Use Monitoring Australia (DUMA) project. For this group of juveniles, drug use is prevalent. Three-quarters reported using at least one illicit drug at some time in their lives, 46 per cent...