The Yoorrook Justice Commission has been hearing about racial profiling and other abuses of power from police. There are calls for an independent body to investigate police misconduct.
What does ‘justice reinvestment’ mean in practice? Who makes funding decisions? To find out more, we consulted Aboriginal communities in Bourke, Moree and Mount Druitt.
Arrested on suspicion of shoplifting and denied bail, Veronica Nelson died alone in a cell. A Victorian coroner has called for urgent reform of the state’s tough bail laws.
Russell Marks’ Black Lives, White Law is not about solutions; it’s about identifying the problems with Australia’s criminal legal system, and the injustice it does to First Nations people.
Victorian prisons provide limited access to adequate health care, particularly for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Coronial inquests into deaths in custody show something must be done.
In the Northern Territory, fatalities by law enforcement is part of an historic cycle of policing in the north which includes police reprisal and then acquittal for murder.
The Australian government signed up an additional three years to implement the UN Protocol to the Convention against Torture. There has been limited progress, particularly for First Nations people.
The High Court has thwarted a potential defence for the NT constable accused of shooting and killing Kumunjayi Walker in 2019 – that he was acting in ‘good faith’ as an officer at the time.
George Floyd’s death and the US Black Lives Matter movement sparked extensive media attention. Why aren’t Australian Indigenous deaths in custody getting the same amount of media coverage?
A documentary series aimed to spark national conversation about criminalising coercive control. However, it highlighted power imbalances in conversations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous women.
Despite the disproportionate numbers of Aboriginal people in prisons, there are near to no cultural protocols in place, and chronic illness is often not addressed.
The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody made recommendations to ensure ethical reporting of these deaths. Despite this, harmful and inaccurate reporting still abounds.
There has been some progress on judicial reform in Australia since the protests began, but structural change requires a truth-telling process and a real commitment from government for action.
There’s no going back to the days when police did not carry guns. But now that they have them, their training must be unremitting. Australian lives depend on it.