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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Calls for greater transparency and accountability for secret ‘STMP’ policing policy and its impact on young people
PIAC has welcomed calls by a NSW Parliamentary Committee for greater transparency and accountability in relation to the way the NSW Police Force applies the Suspect Targeting Management Plan (STMP) to children and young people. The STMP is a secret NSW Police policy that has been used by police to single out young people for…
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Bungled police response leaves DV victim behind bars
PIAC has commenced proceedings against NSW police and corrective services over the mishandling of a domestic violence case that saw a victim held in custody for failing to appear in court as a witness against her former partner. Sarah* was 26 years old and living with her two young children when her former partner, Daniel*…
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NT Royal Commission highlights national crisis in child protection for Aboriginal children
The NT Royal Commission’s final Report, released Friday, is an indictment of the NT government’s failure to protect the most vulnerable children and young people in its care. Importantly, it has also drawn attention to the national crisis in child protection for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. While at risk of being overshadowed…
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Children as young as 10 on “secret police blacklist”: study
NSW Police are keeping a secretive blacklist of people, including children as young as 10, who they suspect may be at risk of committing crimes in the future. Legal academics from the University of New South Wales and the Public Interest Advocacy Centre have released a ground breaking report into the police program called the…
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NSW police may be investigated for ‘secret blacklist’ used to target children
The New South Wales law enforcement watchdog will consider investigating a “hidden” blacklist used by the state’s police force to target children as young as 10 for monitoring despite them not having committed any crime. Details of the the secretive intelligence-gathering tool were revealed on Wednesday in a joint study by lawyers from the Public…
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Secret NSW Police policy harmful to young people
A NSW Police policy that aims to predict and prevent future crime is causing serious harm to young people and undermines the objectives of the NSW youth justice system, a new report has found. The report, released today by the Youth Justice Coalition, considers the impact on young people of the Suspect Targeting Management Plan…
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Children as young as 10 ‘on secret NSW Police blacklist’; suspects ‘routinely harassed’
People as young as 10 are being included on a secretive blacklist kept by New South Wales Police, which experts say is criminalising children. Lawyers from the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) and the University of New South Wales (UNSW) have released a study into a police policy known as the “Suspect Target Management Plan”…
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Northern Territory detention no place for children with disabilities
In 2016 PIAC was engaged to represent the First Peoples Disability Network (Australia) (FPDN) before the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory. Young Indigenous people are significantly over-represented in the child protection and youth justice systems, and we know that there is a high prevalence of physical, cognitive…
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Drugs problem ‘endemic’ in prison system: Coroner
The NSW Coroner’s Court has found today that the ‘availability of illicit substances in correctional facilities is an endemic problem’. This was a crucial finding in a coronial inquest into the tragic death of a 41-year-old woman who died of a heroin overdose in prison last year. Tracy-Lee Brannigan died in Dillwynia Correctional Centre in…
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Death in prison van leads to transportation change
The NSW Government has responded to the recommendations of the Deputy State Coroner MacMahon in the inquest into the death of Mark Stephen Holcroft in 2009. Mr Holcroft (pictured centre, with family) died after he suffered a heart attack in a prison van travelling from Bathurst Correctional Centre to Mannus Correctional Centre. The Coroner made eight significant…