The Implicit Racism in the War on Drugs
Drug prohibition has been a global phenomenon for nearly a hundred years now. The 1925 Geneva Convention imposed international restrictions on the production and use of opium, coca and, as a late addition, cannabis. However, the war on drugs was declared...
Crime and Incarceration: An interview with BOCSAR director Dr Don Weatherburn
NSW crime rates are at their lowest in over forty years, NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR) figures revealed last month. Crime across most of NSW was found to have either declined or remained stable in most major...
Higher National Wealth Does Not Mean Better Living or Lower Crime
Last year was the hottest year on record, and scientists are putting that down to human-caused climate change. The World Meteorological Organisation has announced that as we move towards the middle of 2017, the continuing record-breaking heat is leading us into “uncharted territory.”...
Man Set to Die in Prison for Traffic Offences
Marshall Wallace is an Aboriginal man from a remote outstation in the Northern Territory, who recently moved to Mount Isa with his wife, so he could undergo chemotherapy. Two weeks ago, he was pulled over by police and found to...
The Political Sacrifice of Schapelle Corby
Schapelle Corby’s parole period is coming to an end. After spending almost a decade behind bars in Indonesia on a conviction of trafficking cannabis - a drug that is now legal in eight US states - Ms Corby will finally be allowed...
We’re Importing Medical Marijuana, While Police Are Raiding Local Producers
The first two commercial batches of legal medicinal cannabis products were imported into Australia earlier this week. The medicines were produced in Canada and are being held by Health House International in WA and the Pharmaceutical Packaging Professionals in Victoria. The imports...
Imprisonment Does Not Reduce Crime: An Interview with UNSW Professor Eileen Baldry
NSW is about to reach its highest incarceration rate for the past century. This week, the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR) released the state’s latest custody statistics, which show that at the end of March the adult...
Serco Wants to Run Public Housing in Australia
Large outsourcing companies are increasingly being given control of essential services in Australia, as our federal and state governments follow global privatisation trends. Serco is a British company that’s been making inroads into the Australian public services sector since the 1990s. Contracted...
When “Just Following the Rules” Becomes a Crime
The world watched in horror as footage of Dr David Dao being dragged off a United Airlines flight by Chicago Aviation security officers went viral earlier this month. Airline officials said employees were just following “established procedures,” but to many the...
A World Without Bars: the Prison Abolition Movement
The transatlantic slave trade existed for well over three hundred years, with European nations abducting millions of people from Africa and taking them to colonies in the Americas to be sold into involuntary servitude. Indeed, the wealth of the United States...
