The Modelling Intergroup Violence project is a major initiative of CEPS, led by the UQ node. The ultimate goal of this project is to better understand the spatial and temporal dynamics of community capacities and how these lead to growing levels of crime, disorder, inter-group violence and intergroup hostility. This research examines the various pathways and mechanisms leading not only to particular vulnerabilities, like inter-group violence, but those that lead to converging vulnerabilities. It draws on a number of ecological theories of crime, with a particular focus on systemic theories of community regulation, collective efficacy theory and constrict theory to explain spatial variation in community capacity. A major Computer Assisted Telephone Interview (CATI) survey of nearly 10,000 people across 300 randomly selected suburbs in Brisbane and Melbourne has was completed in 2011, including a booster sample of residents from culturally and linguistically diverse migrant groups. The booster sample involved in-depth face-to-face interviews conducted with over 1,000 people from Arabic, Indian and Vietnamese backgrounds living in the same 300 suburbs in Brisbane and Melbourne. Many of these interviews were completed in the respondents’ native language. This CATI and face-to-face survey builds on two earlier waves of the Australian Community Capacity Study (funded by the ARC in 2005 and 2007) across 148 suburbs in the Greater Brisbane area. It comprises the first wave of what will become a similar longitudinal study of community processes across 150 suburbs in Melbourne. Completing the CATI survey and face to face interviews during 2010/2011 and then cleaning, geo-coding and analysing the data was a major undertaking for the team, with input from CEPS researchers at the various nodes and our industry partners. The successful implementation of the survey has been a significant investment for CEPS, which will yield significant research outputs and policy impacts beyond 2011.

 

Key 2011 project activities and research outcomes 

 

• Upon completion of the CATI survey in December 2010 and the face to face interviews in 2011, the team proceeded to geo-code, clean and analyse the community survey data in 2011. Crime incident data from the Queensland Police Service and the Victorian Police Service was procured, together with census data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics for both Brisbane and Melbourne. Technical reporting and initial analyses for three papers have also been completed.

• In June 2011, international visiting scholar Associate Professor John Hipp, (University of California, Irvine) spent three weeks collaborating with the project team and developing a series of publications.

• Dr Rebecca Wickes (lead CI), with colleagues A/Prof. Lynda Cheshire; Dr Peter Walters; Dr Jonathon Corcoran; Prof. Beverley Raphael; Dr Melanie Taylor and Prof. Fran Norris (University of New Hampshire), were successful in winning an ARC Discovery grant ($427,000) to examine community resilience in Brisbane suburbs pre and post 2011 Brisbane flood disaster.

• In 2011, there were three honours completions. All three students were awarded first class honours, with one student awarded the John Braithwaite Prize for the highest fourth year result in Criminology.

 

Plans for 2012

 

Honours and PhD Developments: In 2012, there will be three new honours students and three new PhD students working with data from the CEPS funded surveys. We also expect two current PhD students to submit their dissertations for examination during 2012.