Robyn Lincoln

Zero tolerance policing threatens personal freedoms

Robyn Lincoln — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 14:49:48 PDT

Extract:

Zero tolerance policing (ZTP) commenced in the USA a decade ago and has been exported to many countries including Australia. It has been applied to a range of situations and even adopted in the education arena largely in America where firearms and violence in schools have been significant problems. The term has entered into everyday use, where most recently, political leaders have applied a zero tolerance stance to terrorism. While the hype surrounding zero tolerance policing appears to have abated, there is still the belief that it offers an easy solution to the problems of crime and public disorder.

The second sentence: Australians imprisoned abroad

Wava Doyle et al. — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 14:49:47 PDT

Extract:

Individuals detained in foreign prisons raise human rights issues of considerable importance, especially given what seems to be an apparent increase in cases involving Australian citizens arrested or imprisoned overseas. The case that generated most interest in this topic was that of Schapelle Corby, a beauty student from the Gold Coast, caught with 4.1kg of marijuana in her possession in Indonesia in 2004. Soon after, international drug enforcement efforts linked nine Australians to the alleged smuggling of 10.9kg of heroin out of Indonesia. Drug-related arrests of Australians continued and Tuong Van Nguyen, a young Australian, was executed in Singapore for trafficking heroin. More recently, was the case of Peter Lloyd, a foreign correspondent with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, who spent six months in prison in Singapore for possession of drugs. In Thailand, Australian author and teacher, Harry Nicolaides was imprisoned for five months for offending the royal family under lèse majesté provisions in the Thai criminal code. And another case this year involved Annice Smoel, a mother of four, who spent four nights in a Thai gaol for stealing a bar mat and allegedly insulting local police.

What the public thinks about sentencing

Marisela Velazquez et al. — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 18:50:38 PDT

Extract:

There is a relatively long tradition by legal scholars of gauging public perceptions about sentencing in Canada, the UK and the USA, along with limited research in Australia. This research is significant because 'the importance of public attitudes to sentencing lies in their potential to influence the development of policy guiding the criminal justice system'. Public confidence is essential for the effective functioning of justice. While it is the case that politicians and legislators make the laws, and judges and other justice agents (eg, police and prosecutors) apply them, the public has a role to play in guiding the types of punishments meted out. Thus, measuring public opinion is necessary because it is both a reflection of, and a potential influence over, sentencing practices.

'Shhh ... We can't tell you': An update on the naming prohibition of young offenders

Duncan Chappell et al. — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 23:23:54 PDT

Prohibitions on the naming of young offenders in criminal proceedings remain a controversial issue both in Australia and abroad. Despite international obligations, like those contained in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to protect the privacy of young people in conflict with the law jurisdictions like the Northern Territory (NT) continue to flout such provisions by placing few restrictions on media reporting of criminal cases involving juveniles. Amidst political clamours for ever more punitive measures to deal with youth crime other jurisdictions now seem bent upon following the NT's approach. A notable and largely unnoticed exception to this trend is to be found in New South Wales where in a recent inquiry, conducted by the NSW Legislative Council's Law and Justice Standing Committee, it has been recommended that not only should the privacy protections afforded young people be maintained but uniform laws should be introduced on this subject. This recommendation has since been accepted by the NSW Government. In this Comment, which updates earlier remarks on this issue published in 2007, an account is given of the inquiry's findings and recommendations, together with a call for research to establish the impact of naming and shaming young people in jurisdictions like the NT.

Judging juries

Robyn Lincoln et al. — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 23:23:54 PDT

Extract:

There have been recent calls for major changes to our jury system in a number of states. Such calls for reform are not new, and tend to occur whenever there has been a high-profile controversial jury decision. One recent example was the trial of Pauline Hanson and David Ettridge in Queensland on charges of electoral fraud. The jury in that case handed down a guilty verdict and the pair was sentenced to three years imprisonment. However, within two months the Queensland Court of Appeal overturned that verdict, quashed the original convictions and the pair were set free.

Civil liberties and sex offender notification laws

Robyn Lincoln et al. — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 22:21:21 PDT

Extract:

Laws specifying that individuals, groups and communities should be notified when sex offenders are living in their areas are now widespread in the USA. Indeed, forty-five American states have enacted community notification legislation, with even more states having laws that require released sex offenders to register with the local police. There is now considerable public debate and pressure to introduce such laws into Australia. The purpose of this article is to examine these notification laws and to evaluate their effectiveness. The article then discusses some of the direct and indirect consequences of notification laws, particularly as they relate to human rights issues.

Rights of the wrongfully convicted

Robyn Lincoln et al. — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 14:54:08 PST

Extract:

Interest and recognition of miscarriages of justice has been increasing in Australia and indeed around the world, generated by high profile cases, the emergence of Innocence Projects, as well as tribunals such as the Criminal Cases Review Commission in the United Kingdom. Despite this, there is often a desire to marginalise miscarriages of justice, evidenced by narrow definitions that are limited to situations where the review mechanisms in place have failed to correct the wrong that has occurred. In contrast, a broader definition describes a miscarriage as a failure to achieve justice. Indeed this failure 'can occur at any stage of the criminal justice process, from law-making through street policing practices, investigations, court processes and custodial practices'. As a result, miscarriages of justice raise 'concerns regarding the fallibility of due process, human rights violations, and the limitation of the adversarial approach'. These concerns have led to a critical and questioning attitude toward the justice system.

Should the double jeopardy rule be in jeopardy?

Robyn Lincoln et al. — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 14:54:07 PST

Extract:

The term 'jeopardy' generally means putting yourself in danger, at risk, or facing some kind of peril. In the law the rule of 'double jeopardy' generally means that a person who is acquitted at one trial should not be in danger of being tried again for the same crime. This rule has been a fundamental principle of most criminal justice systems, especially those based on the common law. Of course there does exist in Australia the possibility of being tried twice where a person who has been acquitted in a criminal court could face a civil court over the same criminal event. The most well-known example of this comes from the USA, where famous footballer and movie celebrity OJ Simpson was acquitted of the murder of his wife Nicole Brown Simpson and acquaintance Ron Goldman in the 1990s, but was later found liable for their deaths in a civil suit.

Human rights (and wrongs) of DNA testing and evidence

Robyn Lincoln — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 14:54:06 PST

Extract:

There has been considerable media coverage and public discussion about DNA testing in the past few years. This is because of a number of high profile cases where DNA evidence has been utilised. It is also because DNA evidence is said to have revolutionised police investigative methods and is set to eclipse traditional forms of forensic evidence presented at trial.

To name and shame or not

Robyn Lincoln et al. — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 14:54:05 PST

Extract:

The justice system includes laws, procedures and specialised agencies that focus solely on juvenile offenders. Since at least early last century there has been recognition that criminal justice should proceed with caution and restraint in dealing with the lives of juveniles. In particular, the view has been that 'get tough' solutions have the potential to wreck young lives and at the same time increase rather than reduce levels of youthful offending. One protective law in regards to juveniles restricts their public identification. Yet recent 'get tough' moves have resulted in changes to the Children (Criminal Proceedings) Act 1987 (NSW) (the CCPA) where s ll(4)(b)-(c) removed the prohibition on public naming of youthful offenders in 2001.

Culture matters: Forensic issues for Australian indigenous peoples

Robyn Lincoln — Thu, 14 May 2009 18:47:28 PDT

Extract:

There has clearly been an extensive amount of scientific focus on Indigenous peoples in the 200 plus years since colonisation. There were many early scientific expeditions, work done by linguists and anthropologists, followed by the involvement of legal practitioners in land rights claims or those working in the health and mental health fields. More recently too, criminological attention has been paid to the interactions of Indigenous Australians and the processes of the criminal justice system largely because of the disproportionate number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples being dealt with by justice agencies. And, of course, in addition to direct scientific intervention there has been the involvement of a range of professionals in implementing policies and programs to deal with what has been termed 'the Aboriginal problem'.

Inequalities of Crime

Kathleen Daly et al. — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 21:51:55 PST

This chapter explores seven major propositions on the relationship between crime and social inequality, moving from the societal level to the individual criminal act. We then turn to the image that criminologists have of inequalities of people and the ways they explain the disproportionate presence of disadvantaged groups in the criminal justice system. This image, which we term the familiar analysis of inequality, focuses on class, and to a lesser extent, on race/ethnicity and age. However, the familiar analysis has a major flaw: It ignores sex/gender. When sex/gender is drawn into the analysis, two observations can be made. The first is that it is males who are most likely to offend or to be subject to criminalisation. The second is that men's private violence, that is, violence against women and children they know, is not addressed. The familiar analysis is also flawed because it collapses race and class, using racial classificiation as a substitute for class. Finally, the familiar analysis utilises elements of inequality in a categorical fashion and thus fails to acknowledge the inter-sectionality of class, race/ethnicity, gender and age. We explore the ways in which crime is predictably structured by multiple forms of inequality, even as we know that it is enacted and experienced within complex and contingent configurations of power.

Urban Indigenous Young People: Criminality, Accommodation or Resistance

M. Lynch et al. — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 17:14:04 PST

Chapter 9 (urban indigenous young people: criminality, accommodation, or resistance) focuses on urban youth and explores aspects of their neighborhood, education, peer relationships, and family.

Contemporary comment: An examination of Australian internet hate sites

Gareth Norris et al. — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 17:14:03 PST

[Excerpt] The recent prosecution of Australian Nationalist Party members for their part in vandalism against religious buildings and immigrant owned businesses, has brought the subject of hate crimes to the political agenda. Increased prison sentences for those found guilty of racial vilification have brought Western Australia into the forefront of opposition to racist dialogue. Such laws however have been in place in other states for some time, with penalties ranging from six months (Victoria, Queensland, and NSW), to three years in South Australia (Martin & Taylor, 2004). Tasmania currently uses the process of civil remedies to counteract such crimes. Under the current proposal Western Australia raises its tariff from the current two-year sentence to 14 years incarceration. While these penalties address the problem of vilification on racial or religious grounds, there is another similar area that has been of concern to legislators for some time. Since 1995 when Don Black, the leader of the US white pride organisation Stormfront posted what is regarded as the first “hate site” (Levin, 2003), it has incited numerous duplications of this theme, and there are several Australian examples of this material. There has also been an equally influential opposition to the removal of such content from the Internet, and recently laws have been applied to the virtual world to mirror the censorship that occurs in the off-line setting.

An Exploration of Automobile Insurance Fraud

Robyn Lincoln et al. — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 17:14:03 PST

This exploratory study analyses claiming behaviour within the automobile insurance industry. A local insurance company provided 32 automobile insurance claims thus permitting qualitative and quantitative analysis. This study enunciates non-fraudulent claiming behaviour as the sample included only a low number of suspected fraud cases. Variables contained within each of the claim files were analysed, as were the statements of the insured individuals. Each claimant is required to provide two written statements to the local insurance company and these statements were analysed for consistency and detail.

The overall findings revealed that claimants were generally employed, middle-aged males who were sober at the time of the theft and had good driving records. A majority of the stolen vehicles were located, and one-third of these vehicles were damaged beyond repair. Most vehicles stolen were either Holden or Ford models and were low-value. Vehicles were more likely to be stolen from shopping centre car parks than from the insureds’ residences.

A statement typology consisting of four categories – adequate, garrulous, reticent and phlegmatic – was proposed. A majority of the statements were categorised as adequate where sufficient detail regarding times and witnesses were provided. Several statements were considered phlegmatic and lacked sufficient detail. Over three-quarters of the insureds’ written statements were consistent with one another.

Given the exploratory nature of this study, no strong inferences should be made. Rather this study serves as a catalyst for further research into Australia’s insurance industry. Specifically, future research should explore fraudulent automobile insurance claims thus providing greater insight into fraudulent claiming behaviour, with the potential to likewise explore compliant behaviour by those insured.

Moral panics and miscarriages of justice: An analysis of alleged wrongful convictions in child sexual abuse cases in Australia

Robyn Lincoln et al. — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 17:14:02 PST

Privatising Community Corrections

Carole McCarthy et al. — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 17:14:02 PST

[Extract from introduction] Queensland has 18 per cent of Australia’s population, 26 per cent of Australia’s prisoners and 35 per cent of Australia’s community corrections clients (Graycar 2000). The average period served in the State’s prisons by inmates released during 1997-98 was 4.2 months for males and 2.1 months for females; where over one-quarter of all people admitted to prison were imprisoned for fine default only (CJS Monitor 1999, 4, February). These statistics demonstrate that Queensland is over-represented in its use of correctional options; (1) that previous prison reforms — which attempted to keep those who defaulted on fines or those sentenced to short-term periods out of custodial settings — have failed; and that, given the comparative picture over time, there has been a worsening of many identified corrections problems.(2)

While crime rates have remained steady in Queensland in recent years, successive governments have legislated to ensure more punitive sentencing, adding to a range of other factors that have contributed to Queensland’s high imprisonment rate (Watts 2000). At the same time there has been a devolution in the reach of government and continued calls for greater state efficiencies in view of the high costs of corrections. Indeed, ‘the corrective services system has had to bear the brunt of the community’s demand for law and order while coping with a government focus on efficiency and competitive business management techniques’ (Peach 1999, 2). With the introduction and now widespread expansion of the private sector in prison construction and management, both in Australia and internationally, attention has now turned to the potential for increased private sector involvement in the delivery of community corrections.

The impetus for the present research comes from the observation that as long ago as 1973, attention was drawn to the consequences of failing to provide probation staff, funds and resources, resulting in ‘the needless jailing of offenders’ and the development and worsening in severity of criminal careers (National Advisory Committee on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals 1973, 335). The potential privatisation of community corrections has been characterised as being ‘an antidote to complacency and the painful realisation that the prison population may never come down but may continue to escalate in a relentless manner, and that existing “alternatives to custody” have failed to check either the crime rate or the prison population’ (Vass and Menzies 1989, 255).

Risk and Resilience: Crime and Violence Prevention in Aboriginal Communities

Ross Homel et al. — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 17:14:02 PST

Developmental prevention involves the manipulation of multiple risk and protective factors early in developmental pathways that lead to offending, often at transition points between life phases. The emphasis is not just on individuals but also their social contexts. Risk and protective factors for crime and violence in Aboriginal communities include such standard factors as child abuse, school failure and supportive family environments, but additional factors arise from unique aspects of Aboriginal history, culture and social structure. This paper draws on existing literature, interviews with urban Aboriginal community workers, and data from the Sibling Study to delineate those interrelated risk factors (forced removals, dependence, institutionalised racism, cultural features and substance use) and the equally interrelated protective factors (cultural resilience, personal controls and family control measures). These are ‘meta factors’ that provide a lens through which the standard lists can be interpreted, and are a starting point for the understanding of indigenous developmental pathways.

Abandoning identity protection for juvenile offenders

Duncan Chappell et al. — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 17:14:01 PST

Extract:

In what is believed to be a case without precedent in Australia the media organisation, John Fairfax Pty Ltd, publishers of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspapers, recently made application in the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal (NSWCCA) to have a name suppression order removed on two juveniles and their cooffending adult siblings.2 The prohibition on publishing their names meant that they could only be known by pseudonyms, namely their initials, on the premise that the naming of the adult brothers would automatically identify the younger ones. In a unanimous decision the NSWCCA (Spigelman CJ, Basten JA and Hislop J) rejected the application on jurisdictional grounds. The decision rested on the fact that current NSW legislation generally empowers a court to grant publication of identity only at the time of sentencing by the sentencing court (NSWCCA 2006).

Breeding hate on the Internet: an exploratory examination of Australian hate sites

Gareth Norris et al. — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 17:14:01 PST