Police are important, but not sufficient, in the crime-reduction effort. I have enormous faith in their abilities, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we need more of them.
As Queensland considers new laws to curb alcohol-fuelled violence in response to a one-punch death, several policy experiments that have occurred in recent years can provide valuable lessons.
Preventing crime before it happens, while saving resources, sounds like a great use of big data. But these calculated probabilities raise big questions about civil liberties.
Aboriginal people with mental and cognitive disability are managed mostly by police, courts, prison and hospitals. It’s costing us millions, when kinder and cheaper alternatives exist.
Police have become the default frontline response to Aboriginal people with mental and cognitive disabilities, setting this group up for a lifetime of ‘management’ by the criminal justice system.
Research suggests serious problems with the way Aboriginal women, particularly those with mental and cognitive disabilities, are “managed” by the criminal justice system.
Australia’s high rates of imprisonment and re-imprisonment of Aboriginal people with mental and cognitive disabilities is not only shameful, it is entirely predictable and preventable.
Police brutality is an ongoing problem in South Africa. Police-worn body cameras may help reduce such incidents by improving accountability. They may also contribute to the safety of officers.
Math isn’t prejudiced, goes the argument. But these arithmetic programs can learn bias from the data fed into them by human beings, leading to unfair treatment and discrimination.
Two criminologists long associated with the University of Missouri – St Louis dispel myths about Ferguson, a community that borders the campus, and explain what’s behind the violent protests there.
Northern Territory police powers to make ‘paperless arrests’ are completely contrary to recommendations by the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, and now the inevitable has happened.