Modern Chains: An Interview with Anti-Slavery Australia’s Professor Jennifer Burn
The 2016 Global Slavery Index estimates there are 45.8 million people around the globe currently in some form of modern slavery. While Australia has one of the lowest rates in the world, the index still puts the number of people enslaved...
South Australia Set to Decriminalise Sex Work
South Australia currently has some of the most repressive sex work laws in the country. However, a bill that passed through the South Australian upper house on July 6, has brought the decade’s long push to decriminalise the state’s sex...
The Evolution of Punishment: From the Corporeal to Incarceration
Renowned French philosopher Michel Foucault opens his 1975 work Discipline and Punishment: The Birth of the Modern Prison with an account of the death of Robert-Francois Damiens – the last French citizen to be drawn and quartered, on 1 March, 1757. A...
Reducing Indigenous Crime: Mass Incarceration is Not the Answer
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are the most incarcerated on earth by percentage of their population. Currently, the Indigenous incarceration rate in Australia is 2,430 inmates per 100,000 adults. In March this year, there were 11,288 Indigenous adults detained in the...
NSW Court Confirms Gittany Murder Conviction
At 10am on 30 July 2011, ABC journalist Joshua Rathmell was on his usual route to work. He was walking through the southern end of Hyde Park in Sydney’s CBD, when he heard “deranged screaming” from a male voice. The journalist...
The Homelessness Crisis: An Interview with RMIT Professor Guy Johnson
Homelessness is an ever-increasing issue in Australia. Despite being one of the wealthiest countries in the world with one of the most equal distributions of wealth, an estimated one in every two hundred people in Australia are homeless. In mid-2015,...
Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley: A Criminal with a Badge
Date published: 15 July 2017 Former Queensland police officer Chris Hurley was in court again this week. He was found guilty on two counts of dangerous driving during a high-speed police pursuit in the suburb of Pacific Pines on the Gold...
It’s Time to End Violence Against People with Disability
Violence against people with disability is endemic in Australia. It’s an epidemic that until recently has remained hidden. The abuse and neglect of the disabled takes many forms from violence to sexual abuse to the denial of their basic rights....
The Impact of Islamophobia: An Interview with MUIS President Abdulah Hamimi
On Monday, the Islamophobia in Australia report was released by Charles Sturt University. A first-of-its-kind in the world, the study focused on 243 verified incidents reported to the Islamophobia Register of Australia between September 2014 and December 2015. President of the register Mariam Veiszadeh...
The Panopticon is Watching Us All
Date of publication: 11 July 2017 The panopticon is a prison design comprised of a central observation tower which is surrounded by a circular building containing multiple levels of single inmate cells around the circumference. From the tower, a prison guard...
