Policing and detention
Media and commentary related to our work to provide critical oversight of NSW Police, prisons and youth detention centres, to protect human rights and ensure fair and lawful treatment.
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Policing the Pandemic Forum
Government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have included severe and unprecedented restrictions on our movement and use of public space. For the first time, many people who have never before been the subject of police scrutiny, find themselves confronted with the reality that faces groups who are historically overpoliced. What powers do police actually have…
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Police search quota figures highlight need for greater scrutiny of policing practices
The Public Interest Advocacy Centre has called for greater scrutiny of police policies and procedures in relation to ‘stops and searches’, following revelations that police area commands have quotas for the number of searches they hope to conduct each year. Documents released publicly have revealed that NSW Police set a quota of 241,632 searches, including…
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NSW police put children as young as nine, many of them Indigenous under surveillance
‘Police in New South Wales have for two decades maintained a secretive blacklist disproportionately made up of Indigenous children deemed to be at risk of committing crimes, who they target using “unreasonable, unjust and oppressive” tactics that in some cases are likely to be illegal…’
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PIAC Welcomes Scrutiny of Invasive Policing Practices
PIAC has welcomed the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission’s (LECC) report into use of the Suspect Targeting Management Plan on children and young people, and called for extensive changes to the STMP policing practices. The STMP is a secret NSW Police policy that is used by police to target young individuals. The LECC’s investigation was launched…
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Police watchdog to probe ‘excessive’ bail checks of Indigenous accused
‘The independent police watchdog will hold public hearings into claims an Indigenous man in NSW was subjected to excessive bail checks as part of a broader probe into whether officers across the state have engaged in unlawful behaviour or serious misconduct in enforcing bail conditions…’
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LECC hearings to scrutinise excessive, invasive home visits by NSW Police
The Law Enforcement Conduct Commission (LECC) will today hold public hearings in relation to the use of ‘bail compliance checks’ by NSW police officers in Newcastle in 2014. PIAC has been acting for the people who were the subject of these ‘bail compliance checks’. One of them was on bail and living with his partner…
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Challenge continues to excessive bail compliance checks
PIAC’s challenge to the power of NSW police officers to conduct bail compliance checks without a Court order continues, with the NSW Court of Appeal setting aside the December 2018 decision of the District Court. The Court of Appeal decided that the original question of law posed by police (and answered favourably to PIAC’s clients)…
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Court win stops excessive and invasive police checks
The District Court of NSW has confirmed that NSW Police do not have the power to enter people’s properties to conduct random ‘bail compliance checks’ without a court order.
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Police powers: hearing today on excessive ‘bail compliance checks’
PIAC is challenging in court the powers of police to conduct ‘bail compliance checks’ at people’s homes without a court order. The case, Dargan and Green v the State of NSW, arises from concerns that police have conducting excessive and invasive bail compliance checks, including late at night and multiple times in a night, without any…