Five Arrested in $30 Million Investment Scam
Five people have been arrested over yet another investment scam, with police alleging the defendants defrauded more than $30 million over three years from unsuspecting Australians. The investment fraud syndicate allegedly worked on a cold calling system between 2012 and...
Empowering Sex Workers: An Interview with Urban Realist’s Julie Bates
Amnesty International has formally adopted a policy to protect and fulfil the human rights of sex workers. This position includes calling for the decriminalisation of sex work, which they define as “consensual exchanges between adults.” The starting point of their policy is to prevent and redress the...
Bosses Regularly Get Away with Ripping-Off Their Workers
A recent decision by the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) highlights the leniency that is frequently afforded to employers who illegally underpay their employees. Former CDPP prosecutor Robert Corr highlights the fact that it is rare for bosses who rip-off their...
Silk Road Creator’s Life Sentence Fails to Deter Online Drug Transactions
Ross Ulbricht, founder of the online drug marketplace Silk Road, had his life sentence confirmed by a US Federal appeals court on May 31. Mr Ulbricht, known online as Dread Pirate Roberts, created the site in 2011. In its heyday, Silk Road...
Drug Driving Charges Are On the Rise
Back in December 2015, the NSW government announced it was tripling the amount of roadside drug testing police were carrying out annually to 97,000 tests by 2017. And not surprisingly, the amount of people being charged with drug driving has more than tripled....
Surf Rage – The Scourge On Our Beaches
Australian beaches can be a dangerous place and, apparently, it’s not just the big fish you have to be wary of if you’re a surfer. A 29-year old is the latest person to be charged over a surf rage incident,...
Supporting Criminalised Women: An Interview with Flat Out’s Jake Argyll
The Australian prison population is at an all-time high. At the end of June last year, there were 38,845 adult prisoners in Australian correctional facilities. Women accounted for 3,094 of them, which is 8 percent of the overall adult prison population. But...
Federal Government Set to Criminalise Revenge Porn
The Federal Government has called for public submissions on developing tougher criminal and civil penalties for people who share or post sexually explicit photos of others without consent. The proposal brings federal “revenge porn” legislation a step closer. Public submissions are open...
Reducing Indigenous Youth Incarceration: An Interview with Just Reinvest’s Sarah Hopkins
There’s a glaring overrepresentation of young Indigenous people in the NSW prison system. While Aboriginal young people make up around 3 percent of the general population, they account for 51 percent of youths being held in juvenile detention. At the...
Serial Sex Offender’s Sentence Reduced Due to Judge’s Error
A DNA profile taken from Michael Dimian in September 2013 matched the sperm fraction of two swab samples taken from the victim of a 1993 rape case. Mr Dimian had already been convicted of several other sexual assaults and was serving...
