Justice Collaboration 

Monthly Update 

19th Edition, May 2026

Welcome to the Justice Collaboration’s May update!

The University of Sydney's Justice Collaboration aims to improve justice outcomes and to ultimately prevent crime.

The University of Sydney has numerous strengths in this area and has a track record of work across disciplines, faculties and research centres directly and indirectly relevant to justice systems and people in conflict with the law. 

In this edition we showcase recent publications and projects, PhD theses from the archives, some helpful resources and exciting upcoming events!

New Publication: Understanding Inequality Within a Personalised System of Disability Support

A recent article, written by University of Sydney and University of Queensland academics, investigates inequalities in support among children with disabilities in Australia. To investigate inequalities in support, a survey of parents of children with disabilities aged 2–17 was conducted. Data from 644 participants was used to analyse unmet needs. Researchers found that most children (83%) were reported to have unmet needs, with therapy, school-based support, and support workers most common. Older children and those with greater functional difficulty had higher unmet need. Low household income, adult disability, single-parent families and residence in regional areas were also associated with higher unmet need. Individual funding was associated with lower unmet need for therapy and medical care, but higher unmet need for support workers, access to community activities and transport. Unmet needs for support are common, and there exist substantial inequalities in support for children with disabilities. Individual funding was not found to reduce unmet needs for support. These results indicate that there is an urgent need for reform of Australia's disability support systems to enhance equitable support.

The article, published in the Australian Journal of Social Issues, can be accessed here.

Bridges Inside Returns for 2026!

Bridges Inside, an initiative of Collaboration members Dr Jedidiah Evans and Dr Sam Shpall — in partnership with HDR students Lily Patchett and Amie Doan — returns for 2026. Bridges Inside is a forum for students, community members, and academics interested in examining prison justice alongside philosophy and literature.

From April to June 2026, Bridges Inside are exploring “prison + media”. Each session examines a different site of interaction between the prison and the media landscape to examine how the lives of incarcerated people are shaped, for good or for ill, by different forms of communication.  

The next session will take place on Thursday 14 May between 4:00 - 5:30pm. It will feature About Time Media - the publisher of Australia’s national prison newspaper - discussing the importance of prison writing for change. 

You can get your free ticket for the event here. Check the Bridges Inside website for the readings for the session. 

Human Services Hub 2026 - Community Corrections

The Human Services Hub is an initiative at the University of Sydney to provide students who might work in one of the many human services with an opportunity to hear from practitioners, learn skills, develop professional networks and to receive updates on relevant policy reforms. A series of free events will be open to University of Sydney students who might want to work in (but not limited to): child protection, criminal justice, disability support, alcohol and other drugs, mental health, social justice, and welfare systems/agencies.

Justice Collaboration Director Associate Professor Garner Clancey hosted the second Human Services Hub last week. Students heard from Annique and Simon - community corrections officers currently working in the Drug Court of NSW. Both gave great insights into the role of a community corrections officer and the work of the Drug Court specifically. Students heard about their career progression, day-to-day work and the skills necessary for success working in correctional services. 

Keep an eye on our website for details on the next Human Services Hub event. 

New Publication: Help seeking attitudes and barriers to support for Pasifika young people in South West Sydney  

A recent article, cowritten by Collaboration member Professor Jioji Ravulo, explores the barriers and enablers that influence Pacific Islander Pasifika young people's help seeking behaviours in South Western Sydney for substance use and mental health problems. The authors discovered that there is a growing concern around mental illness and substance use among Pasifika young people residing in parts of Greater Western Sydney. Findings illustrate how structural disadvantages operating from individual, community, and systemic levels serve as barriers to help seeking leaving Pasifika young people to deal with these wellbeing issues in isolation. The study found that Pasifika young people often deal with mental health issues and life stress on their own due to layers of cultural stigma, and that alcohol and other drugs are sometimes used to cope with emotional stress. The study also shows that Pasifika young people are proactive in changing the rhetoric to normalise help seeking and advocating for culturally appropriate services which respect Pacific ways of ‘knowing’ and ‘being’.

The article, published in Public Health in Practice, can be accessed here.

Congratulations Dr Laura Metcalfe! 

HDR student Laura Metcalfe has been awarded her PhD for her thesis - Examining the operation of doli incapax and implications for reform in New South Wales (NSW), Australia

Children aged between 10 and 13 occupy a distinctive position within the criminal justice system in NSW. Under the doctrine of doli incapax, they are presumed incapable of criminal responsibility unless the prosecution can prove otherwise. Despite the centrality of this doctrine, relatively little empirical research has examined how it operates in practice, how legal actors interpret its requirements, or how it interacts with broader justice system processes. At the same time, debates about youth crime, community safety, and the appropriate age of criminal responsibility have intensified, often without sufficient attention to the day-to-day operation of existing legal safeguards or the lived experiences of children subject to them. This thesis addresses that gap through a mixed-methods examination of doli incapax across legal doctrine, courtroom practice, and children’s trajectories across justice and related systems. By integrating qualitative interviews with magistrates and legal practitioners (n=27), courtroom observations (n=20), an online survey of Local Court magistrates (n=36), and linked administrative data (n=15,895 children with police contact between 10–13), the study provides a comprehensive account of how doli incapax functions not only as a legal principle, but as a mechanism embedded within institutional processes and children’s life courses. The findings demonstrate that the presumption operates primarily as a procedural safeguard that limits conviction but does not prevent children’s exposure to extended justice processes. They further show that early justice system contact is concentrated among children experiencing cumulative and intersecting disadvantage, challenging individualised accounts of offending. In so doing, the thesis contributes new empirical insight into the operation of doli incapax and reframes debates about criminal responsibility by situating the presumption within broader questions of youth justice governance and system design.

Laura was supervised by Associate Professor Garner Clancey, Professor Emerita Judy Cashmore and Dr Betty Luu. You can access her thesis for free here. 

Many PhD theses developed at the University of Sydney over the years may be of interest to those working in criminal justice. We are going to highlight some of these freely available theses in this and upcoming newsletter editions. 

Three papers that make use of micro- and macro-econometrics to evaluate criminal justice policy in New South Wales - Steve Yeong (2023)

This thesis examines the relationship between policing and criminal justice outcomes in the Australian state of New South Wales. The first chapter identifies the effect of an increase in the size of the police force on the volume of crime and arrests. The second chapter examines the relationship between proactive policing, crime and incarcerations. The principal finding from both chapters is that police predominately reduce crime through deterrence, rather than incapacitation. The final chapter examines the relationship between pre-recorded evidence and conviction rates in cases of domestic violence. The main finding from this chapter is that pre-recorded evidence raises the probability of a conviction in such cases.

Steve Yeong’s thesis can be accessed for free here. 

Government-housing: governing crime and disorder in public housing in New South Wales - Christopher Martin (2010)

This thesis examines the variety of practices that are directed at crime and disorder specifically in public housing in New South Wales. It argues that social housing represents a concentration of law and order, and that the conduct of social housing tenants is subject to a distinctive and unusually dense regime of government. 

The government-housing relation is examined at both a macro and micro level. At the macro level, this thesis considers the government-housing relation as it is formulated in terms of governmental rationalities and programs - particularly of liberal governmentality - and hence housing policies and institutions, the prescriptions of experts for its design and management, and the law of landlord and tenant. This is complimented by an examination of the history of these developments. This thesis also presents fieldwork undertaken at the public housing estate at Riverwood, a suburb in southwest Sydney, New South Wales, that recorded the 'crime talk' of tenants and workers on the estate. This local discourse folds together concerns about crime and disorder with wider concerns about the estate's place in the world, and constructs crime and disorder as problems for local action, including through practices of public housing.

Christopher Martin’s thesis can be accessed for free here. 

We are currently conducting a review of resources created by the University of Sydney that may be useful when working with young people. 

Here we highlight some great resources created across the University. These resources cover a broad range of areas including alcohol and other drug use, mental health, communication and parenting. We hope these resources will assist those working with young people at risk of engaging in criminal activity. 

Toward access and equity: disability-informed practice in child protection

This resource, created by the University of Sydney's Research Centre for Children and Families, offers an approach to engage parents with intellectual disability in a fair process for assessing their parenting. It includes practical reflections, activities and tips for workers. The resource is not just for child protection professionals, but can help any worker improve the way they adapt their communication and service responses to ensure they are inclusive and accessible.

Learning with FASD

Learning with FASD, created by the University of Sydney’s Matilda Centre, provides evidence-based resources to help Australian primary and secondary school teaching and support staff understand and support children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD). These resources were informed by input from researchers, experts, educators, and parents and caregivers across Australia.

Raising the Bar Sydney - Dr Jedidiah Evans on Reading, Writing and Redemption  

Presented by the University of Sydney and sponsored by the City of Sydney, Raising the Bar 2026 will transform 10 inner-city bars into spaces of learning for one night only on Thursday May 7. 

One in four Australians will be touched by the criminal justice system in their lifetime, whether as an offender, a victim, or a family member. But what if education, specifically the arts and humanities, could break the cycle? 

For over a decade, Collaboration member Dr Jedidiah Evans has run workshops in NSW prisons, bringing poetry, philosophy, and creative writing to incarcerated men and women. His research shows that meaningful education builds communities on the inside and networks on the outside. And crucially, it reduces the likelihood of people returning. This is restorative justice in action, one poem at a time.

Join Dr Evans at the Rose of Australia to find out what happens when you bring poetry and philosophy inside a prison.

Date: Thursday 7 May 2026

Time: 6:30 - 7:15pm 

Venue: Rose of Australia, 1 Swanson St, Erskineville NSW 2043 

You can get your free ticket for the event here. 

2026 Applied Research in Crime and Justice Conference 

Griffith Criminology Institute and NSW BOCSAR are hosting the 2026 Applied Research in Crime and Justice Conference (ARCJC), showcasing practical, policy-relevant research that bridges evidence to real-world criminal justice practice.

Join policymakers, academics, and stakeholders on 21-22 July 2026 at the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre for the theme Transforming Criminal Justice Systems: Bridging Research & Evidence-based Practice. Explore subthemes like: Evidence-based Policing, Indigenous Justice, Technology & Crime, Youth Justice and more.

Invited keynote speakers include: 

Professor Tom R. Tyler (Yale) 

Professor Susan Dennison (Transforming Corrections Centre)

Professor Kyllie Cripps (Monash Indigenous Studies)

Professor Stephane Shepherd (Deakin Forensic Psychology)

Professor Tamara Walsh (UQ Pro Bono Centre)

Dates: 21-22 July 2026

Location: Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre 

You can find out more about the conference here.

6th Australasian Youth Justice Conference 

The Australasian Youth Justice Administrators (AYJA) invite you to participate in the 6th Australasian Youth Justice conference.

Equitable and inclusive outcomes are achieved through understanding and responding to the unique strengths, challenges, and aspirations of diverse communities. This year’s theme recognises place-based, community-driven approaches and solutions to address overrepresentation and diversity in metropolitan, regional, and remote contexts that genuinely reflect lived experiences. This Conference will provide a platform to share what better outcomes look like for young people in the youth justice system, their families/whānau and communities wherever they are and whoever they may be.  

Two main sub-themes of this conference will be leading practice through culture and connection and weaving the voices of young people into evidence-informed practice.

Dates: 30th September - 2nd October 2026
Location: Murrundi - Murray River, SA.

You can register for the conference here. You can submit an abstract here.

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