This research looks at the appeal, benefits and disadvantages of living in retirement villages, as well as at the business models employed and how the Australian Government can help the sector to expand. Retirement villages are a fast-growing housing sector: in 2014 approximately 184,000 Australians lived in retirement villages, equivalent to 5.7 per cent of the population aged 65 and over, a rate projected to increase to 7.5 per cent by 2025. Living in retirement villages saves the health care system $2.16 billion, with $1.98 billion of those savings achieved by postponing residents’ entry into government funded aged care facilities; however the sector does not currently receive direct funding from Commonwealth or state and territory governments.Retirement villages are governed by state and territory legislation in Australia, with each jurisdiction enacting its own set of regulations. A state tribunal in each jurisdiction provides independent, low cost and accessible dispute resolution in consumer or tenancy disputes.The major providers active in the retirement village industry are for-profit companies who market their product as a ‘lifestyle choice’ to entice wealthy Australians to purchase accommodation. There is little prospect that small not-for-profit organisations will expand their retirement provision without significant government funding (in the form of tax breaks, subsidies etc.).This research makes a number of recommendations, including a national ombudsman to support and advocate for the rights of older people navigating disputes with retirement village operators; greater transparency into fees and ongoing charges for retirement village residents; and building standards that ensure retirement village operators are responsible for providing accessible, universally designed residences and facilities.

This paper pursues an ethnomethodological approach in describing the work of magistrates making bail decisions in Australian lower courts. Because researchers are committed to examining the practical nature of occupational work, this approach has potential to provide a detailed account of rule-use in legal settings. It will be shown how magistrates employ and are permitted to employ considerable discretion when working within bail legislation, and in interpreting legislation. This account of legal work is relevant to long-standing debates about rule skepticism and formalism; and to policy debates that seek to limit judicial discretion.

We propose a volume which, taking law in and for itself, develops a sensitivity to legal practices, that is, an anthropology of these practices which refer somehow to a legal rule, be it to apply or interpret it, or even to dodge or violate it. Legal rules do not determine the behaviors of people to which they are supposed to apply, but they serve as their point of reference. It is these referring practices that the many contributions will address: how is the rule invoked, referred to, interpreted, put forward, or blurred? How do legal practitioners and lay participants participate in the construction of facts and rules, conceive the particularity of the former and the generality of the latter, subsume, and articulate the ones to the others so as to produce decisions? How are notions of person, evidence, intention, cause, and responsibility formulated in the constraining context of a trial? By so doing, the contributions to this volume will converge in the production of a praxeological anthropology of law, a socio-anthropology that focuses on words, concepts, and reasoning as used to solve conflicts with the help of legal rules.

This chapter provides an introduction to ethnographic research on criminal courts, focusing on the scientific and policy objectives in this diverse field. A central theme is that court ethnographers in observing hearings and interviewing practitioners have a choice in employing analytic strategies that focus on “micro” and “macro” level of analysis. Landmark studies conducted in the United States and United Kingdom are summarized, locating these in their political and intellectual context. Practical issues are reviewed including obtaining access, ethics approvals, and data analysis. The chapter also considers future trends and issues: internationalization of this field, practical contributions to understanding criminal justice, and policy implications for debates about social justice. Ethnographers can assist in evaluating emerging philosophies and court-based practices, and new types of specialist courts.

This paper pursues an ethnomethodological approach in describing the work of magistrates making bail decisions in Australian lower courts. Because researchers are committed to examining the practical nature of occupational work, this approach has potential to provide a detailed account of rule-use in legal settings. It will be shown how magistrates employ and are permitted to employ considerable discretion when working within bail legislation, and in interpreting legislation. This account of legal work is relevant to long-standing debates about rule skepticism and formalism; and to policy debates that seek to limit judicial discretion.

Although the field of international criminology has mostly employed quantitative methods to test universal theories, there is a growing recognition of the potential value of qualitative methods in understanding crime and criminal justice in a globalizing world. The difficulties in developing this field are partly practical and financial. It is difficult visiting different countries and overcoming language barriers. But there are also conceptual challenges. Criminology generally is only just starting to understand and engage with the distinction between quantitative and qualitative research methods and to discover the wide range of qualitative methods employed in interdisciplinary fields, such as education, health, environmental, media, and management studies, and to recognize that theories are important in this field.

In this paper we seek to review the rapid rise in remand in custody rates in Australia. In particular, and in response, we ask and discuss three specific questions: 1. To what extent do defendants applying for bail have vulnerabilities? 2. To what extent can risk analysis tools that seek to predict breach of bail terms be relied upon? 3. To what extent can the emerging pre-trial services programs in Australia reduce remand in custody populations?