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     Australia

This page considers questions about 'murder manuals' in Australia.

It covers -

• introduction
• markets
• regulation
• studies

It complements discussion elsewhere on this site regarding Australian regulation of bomb-making information.

     introduction

[under development]

The majority of homicide incidents in Australia from the mid-1990s onwards resulted from murder (84%), followed by acts deemed as manslaughter (11%) and infanticide (5%), with males representing 85% of offenders and 67% of victims of homicide. The mean age of offenders was 34 years; victims had a mean age of 36 years. Some 32% of deaths were attributed to stabbing, followed by beating (27%), gunshot (17%) and suffocation/strangulation (12%). Most murder in Australia over the past fifty years has involved family members, intimates and associates rather than strangers. Over a third of homicides occur in the victim's place of residence.

     markets

How large is the Australian market for murder manuals?

As indicated earlier in this note, the size and shape of that market is unknown. It is clear from statements by Australian Customs Service officials that some consumers have sought to import overseas manuals. It is also clear from statements by police representatives that a range of offenders or alleged offenders have been found to possess manuals, 'survivalist' guides, publications such as Soldier of Fortune magazine and procedural/training documents produced by the Australian armed forces and their overseas peers.

Media reporting indicates that some people have been found to possess print or electronic guides in languages other than English, for example in Arabic and Croatian. The comprehensiveness of that material - accessed from the web, from a personal USB device or compact disk imported as part of a person's baggage, or in a print format that was not interdicted because border security personnel did not understand the text - is unknown. Some items, judging by their description, are quite amateurish.

Regulatory restrictions have meant that we have not seen the emergence of a significant murder manual publishing sector, with demand arguably being satisfied by -

• imports from the US and other jurisdictions
• surrogates such as covert trade in Australian Army explosives manuals
• surrogates such as 'true crime' fiction, television documentaries, feature films and works of scholarship in municipal, high school or university libraries.

     regulation

As highlighted elsewhere on this site, Australian national and state/territory law regarding freedom of speech is distinct from that in the US. That difference has arguably meant that manuals have both been less of a problem and received less attention by lawmakers, criminologists and officials than in the US.

Overall, regulation of murder manuals in Australia reflects restrictions on bomb-making documentation (and more broadly the shape of the Australian censorship regimes. It encompasses national and state/territory law, with -

• restrictions under the Customs Act on importing material in particular categories (with enforcement by the Australian Customs Service and Australia Post)
• restrictions on the sale of specific print items and physical format electronic publications
• prohibition on the sale of videos that have been refused classification
• restrictions on local web hosting of material that 'aids' criminal activity.

There is no discrete, comprehensive national law on the publication or distribution of murder manuals as such.

The Classification (Publications, Film and Computer Games) Act 1995 governs classification of publications and the review of classification decisions, with publications that "promote, incite or instruct in matters of crime or violence" to be classified 'RC' - ie importation and sale within Australia is prohibited.

There has been no direct equivalent of the Paladin case.

     studies

There have been no major studies specific to Australian production, consumption and regulation of murder manuals. Overall there has been little attention in the local academic literature by lawyers, sociologists and others.

The absence of much writing, compared to the US, reflects -

• emulation (academics are not copying their Australian peers because those peers are not writing about manuals)
• the absence of major incidents and associated litigation
• the effectiveness of the Australian censorship regimes in inhibiting production and distribution of manuals.

For an introduction to Australian criminal and civil law see Principles of Criminal Law 2 ed (Pyrmont: Lawbook Co 2005) by Simon Bronitt & Bernadette McSherry, Criminal Laws in Australia (Leichhardt: Federation Press 2006) edited by David Lanham, Bronwyn Bartal, Robert Evans & David Wood and Law of Torts (Chatswood: LexisNexis Butterworths 2004) by Rosalie Balkin & J Davis.

The Australian Institute of Criminology offers definitive data on Australian homicides.









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