Stephen Tomsen

Western Sydney University

Much interest about the failure of New South Wales criminal justice in relation to anti-gay/anti-homosexual violence has centred on recent developments regarding the 1988 death of Scott Johnson, including the unexpected arrest and charging of an accused killer, Scott White. This article considers White’s 2022 conviction after a failed attempt to re...

Research on drug harm reduction services has found these operate as a safe haven from health harm. Less is known about the wider sense of security experienced by clients of such services as a counterbalance to social marginality in their daily lives. As part of a larger study of the experience of violence among Australian men, the authors completed...

Much has been written about the search for carnivalesque release in late-modern society, but relatively less attention has been paid to the harms experienced within this practice. Based on mixed-methods qualitative research including observational fieldwork at a large, multi-day camping festival in NSW, Australia, and in-depth interviews with victi...

This chapter considers the tension between risk, pleasure, and uncertainty in the context of Sydney nightlife. Specifically, it tracks the New South Wales (NSW) government’s recasting of a night-time economy based on neoliberal market freedoms, individual self-regulation, and the promise of a civilized drinking culture to one where danger and risk...

Despite the well-documented under-reporting of sexual violence, to date, no research has considered reporting practices within the specific context of music festivals. Drawing on 16 in-depth interviews with victim-survivors, this article examines survivors’ experiences of (non)reporting sexual violence in festival settings. We argue that while some...

Sydney’s Medically Supervised Injecting Centre in Kings Cross has been a major national and global example of successful harm reduction in relation to illicit drug use ever since it opened its doors 18 years ago. However, since then Sydney has undergone significant transformations as a city, including gentrification of the inner Sydney suburbs wher...

Background & Aims Despite increasing anecdotal evidence that sexual violence occurs at music festivals, to date no research has addressed this issue. This pilot project aimed to establish a research base in this area by investigating patron experiences and perceptions of sexual assault, harassment and safety at music festivals in Australia. Methods...

Mainstream criminology has stressed the importance of flawed notions of personal honour among disadvantaged and minority group men in interactive social disputes that escalate into serious violence. Recent gender studies and critical criminology have been concerned with wider structures of power and the links between hegemonic masculinity and viole...

This paper discusses and analyses the consequences of the inadequate criminal justice response regarding victims of fatal anti-homosexual/transgender violence in New South Wales (NSW) in the late twentieth century, and subsequent developments and claims that have either continued or resisted this pattern. It outlines the complexities around key inv...

Objectives: Despite continued health concerns associated with the practice of consuming alcohol mixed with energy drinks (AmED), few Australian studies have examined the popularity of this combination or attempted to characterise AmED consumers. The purpose of this paper is to replicate two previously used survey approaches to consolidate a nation...

Introduction and Aims Alcohol use and homicide are a wide community concern with particular interest in understanding and preventing attacks (e.g. ‘one punch’ male on male attacks) in commercial nightlife settings with high levels of collective drinking. There is insufficient knowledge of the long‐term patterns in this violence or the relationship...

In recent decades, activists and researchers have described harassment and violence targeted against minority groups as “hate crime.” They have also petitioned police, courts, and state agencies to react against this form of crime. Nevertheless, the term remains conceptually awkward and is highly contested in debates about what incidents and victim...

Research on nightlife and drinking faces many unique challenges, and validity in research is an important concern. A recent publication by Devilly et al. entitled "SmartStart: Results of a large point of entry study into preloading alcohol and associated behaviours" contains definitions and assumptions about prior work that require more careful con...

This paper examines a set of research evidence compiled in the last two decades by the author and several of his Australian colleagues to argue that violence directed at gay men, lesbians and transsexuals as ‘sexual minorities’ has not been wholly distinct from other general forms of male perpetrated violence with a broad range of victims including...

The relationship between the consumption of alcohol and a range of violent crimes, including homicide, is overwhelmingly acknowledged by criminologists. Less is known about the specifics of this relationship—in particular, whether the worst alcohol related violence occurs in private, or in public settings such as Australia’s expanding night-time le...

The relationship between the consumption of alcohol and a range of violent crimes, including homicide, is overwhelmingly acknowledged by criminologists. Less is known about the specifics of this relationship—in particular, whether the worst alcohol related violence occurs in private, or in public settings such as Australia’s expanding night-time le...

This chapter forms the introduction to the edited collection Australian Violence: Crime, Criminal Justice and Beyond . It begins by asking ‘ís there something distinctive about Australian violence?’ and sets out several answers to this question. These responses highlight: Australia's violence past, on it's ongoing effects; distinctive responses to...

This quote came from an interview with a now retired, gay male police officer conducted in a research project in 2010. He elaborates how he thinks LGBTIQ people still hold onto old understandings of police interactions. Furthermore, he notes how he thinks about discussions about these historical moments as ‘stereotypes and prejudices’, as though ev...

Final report of the NDLERF funded POINTED research project.

The "era of identity" is full of sound and fury. The search for identity divides and separates; yet the precariousness of solitary identity-building prompts identity builders to seek pegs to hang on communally their individually experienced fears and anxieties and to perform exorcism rites in the company of others who are similarly afraid and anxio...

Introduction and AimsThere is little research describing how intoxication levels change throughout the night in entertainment districts. This research aims to describe levels of alcohol intoxication across multiple Australian metropolitan and regional nightlife districts.Design and Methods This study was conducted in the night-time entertainment di...

Energy drinks and energy 'shots' have become increasingly popular in recent years. Many people consume them with the belief that the beverage will assist in endurance, concentration and stamina. To better understand any potential for harm when young people drink alcohol and energy drinks together, NSW Health commissioned independent research. The T...

The binary model of sexuality can be devastating and even fatal for people left outside the category of heterosexuality. Essentialist categories of sexuality and gender are often enforced by harassment and violence, as is clear in the case of violence directed against sexual minorities such as homosexual men. This book investigates why men launch a...

Risky alcohol consumption is the subject of considerable community concern in Australia and internationally, particularly the risky drinking practices of young people consuming alcohol in the nighttime economy. This protocol paper describes a study that will determine some of the factors and correlates associated with alcohol-related risk taking, o...

This paper discusses Australian controversies over defences and excuses to homicide that serve partly to normalise violence in fatal conflicts between men. The ‘homosexual advance defence’ (HAD), describes a specific use of the provocation plea to seek a reduction of murder charges to a finding of manslaughter in cases of alleged male on male sexua...

Contemporary culture is replete with carnivalesque representations of violence and this has accelerated with the development of online technology. Felony Fights is a website and set of DVDs depicting real combat between male former convicts and other men. Viewer responses to these clips reflect a complexity of meaning and symbolic associations betw...

This article explores aspects of risk, safety, and hostility as perceived and experienced by participants at large-scale gay and lesbian festivals and special events held in Australia. These public celebrations of gay and lesbian identity have considerable economic, social, and cultural benefits and they contribute significantly to the creation of...

Prejudice and violence directed against gay men, lesbians and other sexual groups have been viewed as ubiquitous and relatively fixed phenomena in contemporary societies. This perspective must be reconciled with the increased depiction of marginal sexualities and commercial ‘queering’ of mainstream media and popular culture. This paper presents and...

In 1975 the landmark 'Law and Poverty in Australia' report (Sackville 1975a) sought to ensure substantive rather than formal equality before the law for all Australians. A fundamental aspect of its proposals was an extensive and innovative legal aid system with expanded public funding, with greater assistance in both conventional and new areas of l...

Violence, Drinking, Alcohol, Urban Crime, Private Security, Masculinity

Contemporary researchers have gathered widespread evidence of same-sex practice and desire with no implications for identity, across a range of historical and social settings. Paradoxically, models of understanding hate crime and homophobic violence that incline towards sexual essentialism have emerged in the same period. Categorizing perpetrators...

The links between crime, violence and male offending are now more deeply researched in a growing international literature that understands much antisocial and criminal behaviour as a social resource for the attainment and protection of masculine identities. Nevertheless, the tie between masculinity and nonoffending has been much less explored. This...

Anti-homosexual harassment and violence are often described as ‘hate’ crimes perpetrated by homophobic people who act on an extreme and irrational contempt for the sexual identity of victims, and killings are regarded as the most typical form of these incidents. But there is little detailed international research evidence about the victims, perpetr...

The links between social constructions of sexuality and gender are theoretically and politically problematic. A contemporary social movement understanding of violence against gay men and lesbians as ‘homophobic’ suggests a solid basis for coalitionist action. But important aspects of the imposition of gender conformity are a common thread in the ex...

Abstract In recent decades, researchers, activists and policymakers have described a wider range of criminal incidents (including assaults, harassment, vilification and attacks on property) as forms of ‘hate crime’. These crimes are generally understood as motivated by perpetrators’deep hostility to the (real or presumed) social group identity of v...

Although a wide research literature suggests a regular connection between drinking, violence and social disorder, much doubt remains as to the actual nature and significance of this link. Some strong insights into this are provided by a dual consideration of the tie between masculine social identity and heavy group drinking, and the importance of i...

This book provides a collection of essays dedicated to the issues of hate crimes in Australia. The contributors illustrate popular contemporary perceptions of minorities in an imagined homogenous Australia. This work evaluates the history of violence against minorities, and the inadequacies of the criminal justice system in dealing with hate crimes...

Profession-state relations are usually analysed from an interventionist perspective in which the contemporary state acts as a unified and conscious subject, and threatens the autonomy of professionals by regulating and employing them. The recent history of debates and reforms to the legal aid system in Australia suggests there is a far more complex...

Reports the method, results, and implications of some observational research conducted in 1989 in Sydney, Australia into 4 high-risk and 2 low-risk public pubs and clubs. The premises were particularly contrasted, as were violent and nonviolent occasions in the same venues. Violence was concentrated in specific places at specific times. It was rela...

No Yes

Felony Fights is a website and set of DVDs depicting 'no rules' combat between male former convicts and a range of opponents. In these, the spectacle of violence serves to obscure the profoundly unequal relations of power that shape their production and viewing appeal. In Felony Fights, embodied marginality and poverty are presented as evidence of...

Yes Yes