Each edition contains news articles and investigative pieces. These are topical stories that are usually about prisons and criminal justice.
We also summarise the latest criminal justice news around the country.
“It is our assessment that Victoria Police did not comply with the Surveillance Devices Act when installing and maintaining integrated listening devices,” the report said.
In early December, the United Nations (UN) Working Group on Arbitrary Detention visited Australia. Their purpose was to provide guidance on how international human rights standards apply to prisons and places of detention.
Including a Victorian man suing for his right to have Vegemite in prison, a new framework for rehabilitation being launched by NT Corrections, a QLD Watchdog calling separation rooms in youth prisons ‘inhumane’ and more.
The death of a 16-year-old First Nations teenager in a notorious youth unit of an adult prison in Western Australia was preventable and predictable, and the result of “serious longstanding deficiencies in the system, a Coroner has found.
Obtaining information from federal agencies is about to become subject to stricter rules under the Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 2025 (Cth).
End-of-life care, also known as palliative care, is a healthcare process that aims to improve the quality of life and reduce the suffering of those who are terminally ill. Being incarcerated can make this stage of life even more complicated.
A remote WA prison holding mostly First Nations people is “unfit for purpose”, with people sleeping on the floors and cockroach infestations.
A number of Victorian prisons may have to be renovated or rebuilt after the Supreme Court found that no “open air” was being provided to inmates in multiple units.
The Liberal Queensland government has announced plans to significantly minimise the rights to vote for people in prison.
Prison pen-pal programs have been found to improve the health and wellbeing of those in prison, and their rehabilitation, thanks to improved connections with
the general community.
The latest in criminal justice around the country, including a calling for reform on Youth Justice, the age of criminal responsibility being reduced to 10 in the NT and a potential end to strip searches for women in QLD prisons.
Racial profiling is a concern for policing across the country.
Several states are looking to improve access to technologies in prison cells, with some also to provide limited access to the internet and email.
The latest in criminal justice around the country, including Queensland Police Officers facing charges after a watchhouse incident, formerly incarcerated women calling for the end of strip searches in prisons and domestic violence law reforms in NSW.
Following a number of complaints from inmates, the NSW Ombudsman investigated Serco’s response to an assault at Clarence Correctional Centre.
The past month has seen several important developments in youth justice legislation and policy across the country.
Queensland has become the first state to allow people in prison to purchase basic painkillers through the canteen buy-up process, marking a significant step forward in the provision of healthcare in the prison system.
Ron Brierley’s case is the tip of a very large iceberg when it comes to elderly people and healthcare in prison.
The latest criminal news from around the country, including pressure on WA government to act on ‘systemic failures’ in youth detention following inquest into death in custody of Cleveland Dodd, Victoria backflipping on raising the age of criminal responsibility and all prisons in NSW now having access to ‘virtual’ medical care.
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