Last week, the High Court upheld Queensland’s controversial criminal association laws, which had been challenged by the Gold Coast Chapter of the Finks Motor Cycle Club and Pompano Pty Ltd.
The challenge…
There is a clear link between communication disorders and young offenders – but what can we do about it?
Youth justice image from www.shutterstock.com
Half of Australia’s young male offenders have a clinically significant, previously unidentified language deficit.
It’s a shocking figure that comes after ten years worth of research into the oral language…
Describing child exploitation material as child pornography risks legitimising a serious criminal offence.
Child crying image from www.shutterstock.com
Pornography was once banned, part of a subterranean culture where photographs, 8 mm films, and books were sold and shared illicitly.
Over the past few decades, however, pornography and erotica have become…
Hugging and making up: Samoan Moe Fonoti (right) embraces Logan Aboriginal elder Wayne Saunders, after talks to defuse local tensions.
AAP/Dave Hunt
Every city has them – the neighbourhoods that everyone else looks down on.
In Australia, Sydney has “Westies”. Brisbane has “Logan bogans”. And in Melbourne, the western suburb of Sunshine is colloquially…
Protesters march against the torture at Abu Ghraib; we use social psychology to help understand why people commit such acts.
Shrieking Tree
Social psychology addresses many of the important questions that concern us as human beings. It’s also the subject of newspaper editorials on most days: why is there conflict between groups? How can it…
Do police crime figures misrepresent African Australians?
AAP
In absorbing some of the press coverage recently, one could be forgiven for thinking a significant percentage of crime in Victoria is perpetrated by young African-Australians.
In my PhD study, my academic…
Anders Breivik was sane when he murdered dozens of people in Norway last year according to a jury.
EPA/Heiko Junge/Pool Norway
One of the most high profile court decisions on “madness” and crime has concluded. In a unanimous decision, the Oslo District Court in Norway has convicted Anders Behring Breivik of the murder of 77 people…
A new social impact investing project in the US which aims to reduce recidivism in prisons has taken the original model further.
In April last year I wrote in The Conversation about an innovative financial investment mechanism called Social Impact Bonds, that was designed to address some of society’s wicked problems by engaging…
Sydney is currently in the grip of a series of shooting attacks, particularly drive by incidents like this April 20 incident in the western suburbs.
AAP/Dean Lewins
The spiralling rise in shooting crimes in Sydney’s western suburbs requires strong and sustained political, community and police action to make suburbs safe for families.
I happen to live in a suburb…
Discrimination on the basis of irrelevant criminal records is rife in Australia.
Flickr/Waponi
Applying for a job is stressful enough, but if you have a criminal record, even if it’s not relevant to the job you’re applying for, it can be a nightmare.
Employers in Australia regularly discriminate…
Shamed senior police officer Mark Standen is lead away from King St Supreme Court after being found guilty of attempting to import a massive haul of pseudoephedrine.
AAP/Tracey Nearmy
The Australia21 report on illicit drugs draws much-needed attention to many serious issues, including the major role played by corrupt police in drug distribution networks.
The role played by drugs in…
The level of business crime is lower in China than other emerging economies – but bribery and forgery are more frequent than in Australia.
AAP
Few crime victim surveys have been conducted with Chinese populations, but a recently released study, Business and the Risk of Crime in China, analyses the results of the first large scale victimisation…
It’s worth taking another look at Bob Carr’s record on decriminalising drugs.
AAP Image/Lukas Coch
The Australia21 thinktank has today released a report describing the war on drugs as a failure.
Foreign Minister Senator Bob Carr, part of the working group that developed the report, today told the ABC…
Convicted murderer Keli Lane is one of Australia’s most famous cases of infanticide.
AAP Image/Dean Lewins
In December 2010, Keli Lane, a former champion water polo player, was convicted of the 1996 murder of her two day old daughter, Tegan. The new-born girl was never seen again after leaving the hospital…
When people need to beg, the last thing we should be doing is seeing them as criminals.
Flickr/galawebdesign
The criminal offence of begging should be abolished.
Criminalising begging is tantamount to criminalising poverty. It perpetuates, rather than alleviates, the marginalisation and disadvantage experienced…
Slain underworld figure Carl Williams, who made a living trafficking illicit drugs, is carried from his 2010 funeral in a gold coffin.
AAP
Policy making is supposedly influenced by scientific evidence, which in turn leads to better political, social and economic outcomes, depending on the issue at hand. One would like to think that in a moderately…
Most people associate Cabramatta with crime and drug dealing, but the reality is much has changed since the 1990s.
AAP
In a world of 24/7 news cycles and prejudice masquerading as insight, it is often very difficult to communicate the deeper analyses based on social science research.
Surprising then that a program based…
Indonesian police chief Timur Pradopo has dismissed payments from Freeport McMoran as “pocket money”.
AFP/Bay Ismoyo
President Barack Obama is being urged to raise human rights abuses with the Indonesian President during his visit to Bali. Indonesia is a key ally of the US, now America’s security focus has shifted to…
Young offenders may not be equipped with the skills to help them deal with restorative justice.
Flickr/Pandham
Educating young offenders about the consequences of their crimes is a key way to ensure they don’t re-offend. But bringing them face to face with their victims may not always be the right way to go.
Young…
Married people are less likely to commit crime.
Flickr/Marcus Hansson
More than half of all murders in Australia involve family members. The majority of them are committed by men who kill their partners. Here, as in many other countries, violence in the home is a major social…
Police dragged protestors away from the Occupy Melbourne protests one by one.
AAP/Julian Smith
I received a text message on Friday morning from a friend at the Occupy Melbourne protest at City Square, saying that the protesters were about to be forcibly evicted.
From my time in City Square the…
London’s burning: but the rioters had a point.
EPA/Kerim Okten
The powers that be describe the street violence and social upheaval which took place in England’s major cities last week as “mindless”. Yet it was anything but.
Prime Minister David Cameron, among others…
English police have defended their tactics in the riots.
AFP/Leon Neal
English police officers have defended their handling of the riots which erupted in several cities across the country last week.
After the worst urban disorder in living memory, leading politicians are…
Using strong arm tactics like water cannon and tear gas won’t deal with the wider problem.
EPA/Kerim Okten
The violence that took hold of London at the weekend has spread to other English cities. Sixteen thousand police were on the streets of the capital on Tuesday night, but the trouble has extended to Manchester…
Right-wing extremism is threatening multiculturalism in Europe EPA/JON ARE BERG JACOBSEN/AFTENPOSTE
The recent massacres by Anders Breivik in Norway drew the attention of the world to a growing reactionary element in Europe who resent the three Ms – Muslims, multiculturalism and Marxism.
So how do these…
It costs $207 a day to keep one prisoner in jail.
Flickr/winterofdiscontent
Australia’s prison population is decreasing. But it’s a little too early to break out the champagne. The huge regional differences reveal that imprisonment is not based on the crime you commit, but the…
Former Securency chief financial officer Mitchell Anderson, left, is facing foreign bribery charges.
The laying of charges against two Reserve Bank of Australia subsidiaries and six of their former senior managers for alleged bribery of foreign officials represents a truly historic moment in Australian…
Abu Bakar Bashir is driven away from court after being sentenced to 15 years in jail.
AAP
Radical Indonesian Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir was yesterday sentenced to 15 years in jail for supporting and sponsoring terrorism.
RMIT Associate Professor Jeff Lewis, an Indonesia expert, tells The…
There is a more modern way to get your man.
BostonBill/Flickr
Police lineups have long been used in criminal investigations. We have all seen TV shows depicting a witness trying to identify a bad guy from an array of people in a lineup. But in some areas using photos…
