The Government aims to ensure that people will be safe and their property secure, the justice system is a key enabler in achieving this goal. In it’s operations, Parliament stated […]

The Commonwealth and Northern Territory Governments signed an agreement on 27 July 2000 to enable the diversion of juveniles from the criminal justice system and to provide for joint funding […]

Courts and tribunals in Australia are making substantial investments in court technology, in particular, videoconferencing and broadband technology, as a way of delivering justice to remote and regional Australia. While […]

The Nowra Circle Sentencing Court was established in 2002 and has had numerous successes during its operation. This court sits within the traditional court system and has a Magistrate hand […]

The responsibility for policing domestic crime is traditionally the domain of State and Territory police services. The role of the Australian Crime Commission (ACC) is to provide intelligence and investigative […]

The aim of this project was to investigate the extent to which people living in poverty interact with, and are impacted by, the workings of the criminal justice system in […]

The Young Offenders Act 1997 (YOA) created a hierarchy of sanctions designed to divert young offenders from the court system including warnings, police cautions and youth justice conferences. The aim […]

With most prisoners released from custody eventually returning to custody (estimated 74% for NSW Indigenous prisoners), this research by the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research examines […]

This report isthe third national report on health services provided by Aboriginal community controlled and non-community controlled health organisations, and funded by the Office for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander […]

Though the law is designed to act as a tool for natural justice, with the presumption of innocence and the capacity to protect and punish, for many Indigenous Australians, the […]

This paper addresses the debate on Northern Territory mandatory sentencing laws by surveying the regional institutional structures that have emerged in other parts of the world to bind governments to […]

Research has shown that mentoring can have powerful and lasting positive impacts on the behavioural, academic and vocational outcomes of at-risk youth. This resource sheet examines the evidence on the […]

This conference paper discusses findings that it is drug and alcohol abuse, not poverty and unemployment, which are the key factors behind the high rate of Aboriginal imprisonment. Far from […]

This study uses the 2002 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey (NATSISS) to examine the economic and social factors that underpin Indigenous contact with the criminal justice system. […]

This study measures the rate of re-offending on parole in NSW, identifies the predictors of both general and violent offending on parole and describes the types of offences committed on […]

The appointment of liaison officers to act as bridges to vulnerable or hard to reach communities is a standard application of a community policing philosophy, and one that would seem […]

The Mahi Tahi Trust works with prison inmates and their whanau (family), helping them to discover and recover traditional Maori principles, values and disciplines. The work is centred on four […]

The Legal Australia-Wide (LAW) Survey found that Indigenous people who experience legal problems had an increased likelihood of experiencing multiple legal problems. New analyses show that compared to others, Indigenous […]

Aboriginal Court Day, known to the local community as the Nunga Court, has been operating in the Port Adelaide Magistrates Court (SA) since June 1999. The Nunga Court is designed […]

This strategy provides the broad direction for addressing problems relating to alcohol and other drug use in Western Australia for the years 2005-2009. Drug and alcohol use affects the entire […]

This report of an unannounced inspection of Eastern Goldfields Regional Prison (WA), which is one of four “Aboriginal prisons” in Western Australia, finds the prison to be a distressing place, […]

This chapter seeks to provide indicators of Indigenous women’s experiences in the Western Australian legal system, in order to highlight various aspects of disadvantage. Where possible, comparative data are also […]

This report has been prepared to guide the delivery of better services to Indigenous people in the State and to measure the impact of these services over time. It compiles […]

The physical facilities and service delivery models of the Boronia Pre-release Centre for Women were explicitly designed around a women-centred approach to corrections. This inspection report finds that it has […]

The rate of female imprisonment in Western Australia is increasing at more than twice the rate of male imprisonment, and 40% of the women are Aboriginal. The inspection of Bandyup […]

This is a review of services provided under the Court Security and Custodial Services Act 1999 by the public and private sectors. Contract services are currently provided by a subsidiary […]

This report considers vocational education, post release support and, significantly, innovative strategies to better address the issue of Aboriginal recidivism. However, while this report found that there are significant successes […]

This report is the first of two reports into the efficiency and effectiveness of prisoner education, training and employment strategies. Its focus is prison employment activities and prison industries, and […]

Discusses the human rights implications of the ‘media gag’ imposed on Lex Wotton for his part in the Palm Island riots after the death of Mulrunji.

This report provides a national profile of mentoring programs for young offenders or young people at risk of offending, based on an audit and review of 21 projects. The report […]

This evaluation considers the first three years of operation of the Juvenile Pre-Court Diversion Scheme the Aboriginal Interpreter Service (AIS) in the Northern Territory. The programs are funded jointly by […]

This paper discusses the benefits to Indigenous people obtaining and retaining a driver’s licence including improved mobility, road safety, health and well being. It outlines barriers to obtaining and retaining […]

This short bulletin notes that there are significantly higher rates of cannabis use in remote Indigenous communities than in the general Australian population. Key statistics and links to other useful […]

Violent crime statistics drawn from police data do not show the large amount of violent crime and victimisation that is never disclosed to police. Within this ‘dark figure of crime’ […]

This report outlines the results of a workshop that was held in Mildura, Victoria on 5 and 6 August 2008. The theme of the workshop was ‘policing substance abuse in […]

This report on the development of a community safety survey arose from a need for a greater level of awareness about the behaviours and circumstances that affect community safety and […]

There have been many varied approaches over time to engage Aboriginal people as a part of the police service. One such has been creating Indigenous liaison officers to act as […]

This report examines the changes in the prevalence and nature of self-inflicted deaths in prison over 34 years, comparing data from 1980 to 1998 and 1999 to 2013. While a […]

This project focused on the experiences of Aboriginal young people with and around alcohol in the south and south-east metropolitan area of Perth. The purpose of the study was to […]

This report considers research on the problem of crime resulting from alcohol and other drug abuse in American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) communities. It provides a review of published […]

This report covers the proceedings of the wananga hosted by Te Puni Kokiri, 24 June 2010, Brentwood Hotel Wellington, New Zealand. The purpose of the wananga was primarily an opportunity […]

The issue of violence in Indigenous communities has attracted serious and increasing political and media attention in recent years, the culmination of which is represented by the Northern Territory Emergency […]