Don Weatherburn

The Sydney Medically Supervised Injecting Centre: Client Characteristics and Predictors of Frequent Attendance during the First 12 Months of Operation:

This paper describes characteristics of clients registered in the first 12 months of the Sydney Medically Supervised Injecting Centres (MSIC) operation, as well as predictors of frequent attendance. The study is based on information collected from clients at their initial registration and subsequent service utilization. Most of the 2,719 clients were male (71%), almost half had previously experienced at least one nonfatal heroin overdose, and one quarter had accessed formal drug treatment in the previous 12 months. Characteristics associated with frequent attendance at the MSIC were reporting previous attendance at the local primary health service for injection drug users (IDU), injecting drugs other than amphetamine, reporting sex work, injecting at least daily, and injecting in a public place in the month before registration.

Property damage and public disorder: Their relationship with sales of alcohol in New South Wales, Australia

It has been suspected for some time that alcohol is involved in the origin of offensive behaviour and property damage incidents. Using regression analyses and a cross-sectional design, this study investigates these relationships for both Sydney and country New South Wales (NSW), whilst controlling for key social and demographic variables. The study found that both offence types occurred more frequently in areas with greater sales of alcohol. The effect of alcohol sales was considerably larger in Sydney than it was in country NSW. There was an interaction between aboriginal population size and alcohol sales for country NSW offensive behaviour data. Overall, these findings are consistent with alcohol consumption playing a causal role in these offences, however, the possibility remains that alcohol sales may be acting as an indicator of criminal opportunity.