Gradually, every Australian’s DNA is aggregating through heel pricks into a national database. But no cohesive laws or firm guidelines govern use of this or other personal DNA data, which is controlled by a “spaghetti junction” of rules. Academics Diana…
No-one in the Queensland Police made any mistake whatsover in connection with the death in a cell on Palm Island of Mulrunji Doomadgee, or in the years of investigations and coronial inquests and court cases which followed. Oh to be a Queensland police…
Restorative justice aims to help victims of crime, turn prisoners into contributors, make prisons better for everyone, and send convicted criminals back into the community to NOT re-offend. Why isn’t it in use everywhere? Brian Steels explains how it wo…
Even in special prisons for women, prison authorities always think of them second…or last. Because of that pervasive attitude, women do it very tough. In fighting for individual rights that male prisoners don’t need to fight for, the women run the ris…
Editor, The Australian, Sir: Re ‘Dads demand blanket DNA testing’, The Australian 16 Feb 2011, p3.
I support men’s rights agency director Sue Price’s call for mandatory DNA testing at birth, and Sole Parents Union president Kathleen Swinbourne urgin…
Restorative justice is a growing trend worldwide, but the concept needs better definition, more targeted use, better reporting and support from governments, Auneesh Kishore writes. His internship report, a joint undertaking with CLA and the Law Faculty…
In April, it will be two decades since the final report of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody was released. Eleven volumes, 5036 pages of evidence, 339 recommendations…but 20 years on, Indigenous Australians are being locked up a…
In Tasmania, puffers are duffers, councils say…as Hobart, Launceston and Burnie lead the way to ban smoking in public, under threat of a $120 fine. But do such paternalistic policies do more harm than good? The Australian Parliament has just issued a…
SCAG – the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General – issued a typical economically worded ‘communique’ after its December 2010 meeting. CLA believes SCAG should publish a full agenda, and formal minutes, for each meeting.
Communique – Standing Commi…
What exactly is the naughty Nordic crime WikiLeaker Julian Assange is alleged to have committed…twice? Turns out it may have more to do with the strength of Swedish condoms than the quality of justice in the country of blondes. Now, if only he’d been…
