Government Slammed for Inaction Over Mass Incarceration of First Nations Peoples
Right now, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are the most incarcerated people on Earth. Despite making up 2.8 percent of the overall population in Australia, First Nations people account for close to 28 percent of the adult prisoner population....
Muslims Are the Main Targets of Hate Crimes in NSW
A recent study by the Sydney Institute of Criminology (SIC) has found that the overwhelming majority of religiously motivated hate crime in New South Wales is perpetrated against Muslim people. The SIC’s Professor Gail Mason made the finding by looking...
First Nations Suicide Prevention: An Interview With R U OK?’s Dr Vanessa Lee
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander suicide rates have reached crisis point. After being very low in the late 1980s, the number of First Nations people taking their own lives over the last decade has been increasing dramatically. And over the...
Death by Stoning for Sodomy, Adultery and Rape in Brunei
As of today, a new law comes into force in the Southeast Asian sultanate of Brunei, which prescribes the penalty of death by public stoning for partaking in sexual acts with another person of the same sex. The barbaric new...
Twilight of the Federal Coalition: It’s Time for Change
After eight years of the NSW Liberal Nationals government slowly implementing a suite of laws which have eroded civil liberties, including anti-protest laws and legislation passed under the guise of fighting terrorism, as well as a drawn out assault upon...
Use of Defence Lawyer As Informant Labelled ‘Negligence in the Highest Order’
The failure of Victoria Police to obtain legal advice before persuading and paying a criminal defence barrister to inform on her own clients was labelled in a 2015 report by the Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission (IBAC) as ‘negligence in the...
Isolating Extremists Increases the Danger
One of the responses used by many countries to the threat of violent extremism has been to segregate suspected offenders in prison. However, a decade-long study of prisons in the Philippines by Australian National University researcher Dr Clarke Jones suggests...
Sydney Criminal Lawyers® Weekly Rundown – Articles from 25 to 31 March 2019
In case you’ve missed any of them, here’s a rundown of the past week’s articles: Judges and Lawyers Must Assist Those Who Represent Themselves Legal professionals are required to promote the interests of justice by assisting those who self-represent. Click...
Maralinga No More: The British Nuclear Bombing of First Nations Lands
As former Australian Conservation Foundation anti-nuclear campaigner David Noonan put it in 2005, “Australia is the only society to have ever provided its own uranium to an overseas nuclear weapons state to make nuclear weapons to then bomb back on...
Justice for Bowraville: Calls to Review NSW Double Jeopardy Laws
Three Aboriginal children from the NSW mid-North Coast town of Bowraville were murdered over a five month period beginning in September 1990. And while police claim there is now enough evidence to establish the guilt of the alleged killer, the...
