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...
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...
Fresh Allegations of Match Fixing in the NRL
Like many other sports, the NRL has long been plagued by match-fixing scandals. In one of the most infamous examples, former Canterbury Bulldogs player Ryan Tandy received a criminal conviction and was banned for life from the NRL in 2012...
Law Degree Majoring in Legal Technology Aims to Future-Proof Students
The University of Technology Sydney (UTS) has introduced a new undergraduate major in legal futures and technology. The course begins in March 2018, and is being offered for both the university’s standalone and combined law degrees. It is the first...
Sydney is No Longer the Violent Crime Capital of Australia
Figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) suggest Melbourne has overtaken Sydney as the violent crime capital of Australia. The 2016 ABS ‘Victims of Crime’ survey suggests Victoria has the highest incidence of crimes against the person, including...
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...
Blasphemy is a Crime in NSW
Christianity has had a difficult year. Putting the Royal Commission on child sexual abuse and proceedings against Christian schools aside, atheists have officially knocked Catholics off their top spot as the country’s most followed belief system. The Census results are...
Turkey’s Relentless Attack on Human Rights Defenders
At around 10 am on July 5, Turkish police raided a routine professional workshop for human rights defenders at a hotel in Büyükada, one of the Princes Islands near Istanbul. The activists were arrested and are now detained and investigated...
