CrimNet

11 May 2023

Digital technologies are rapidly transforming the criminal justice system, with audio-visual links and 3rd party video communication platforms replacing physical presence in courtrooms and direct human communication. But are these technologies delivering fair criminal justice?

Physical presence in many courtrooms around the world was effectively banned in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Audio-visual links and third-party video communication platforms became critical courtroom infrastructure, enabling remote or virtual hearings. These widespread changes to the administration of justice occurred before all the risks from digitalising courts were considered.

Led by Institute Co-Director, Dr Carolyn McKay, this Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) project will evaluate the impact of digital audio-visual communication technologies on fair and inclusive justice for vulnerable users of criminal courts. It aims to investigate use of these technologies from the perspective of judges and lawyers.

The project will consider what vulnerability is in the digital criminal justice system and aims to develop recommendations for inclusive justice and strategies to better protect the vulnerable under digital justice.

Discovery of newborn in Sydney prompts calls for safe drop-off zones for unwanted infants: Dr Amy Conley Wright, The Guardian

Baby boxes offer desperate parents somewhere safe to surrender their newborn babies anonymously, but there are none in Australia. So what are they, and how could they help save little lives? Read here. 

So, what has been happening? In November of last year, Elon Musk’s Neuralink,  a neurotechnology company which had earlier demonstrated that a monkey with one of its brain-implants could play a computer game by thought alone (rather than using its body), announced that it hopes to begin human trials on their device in 2023.

Shortly before Christmas, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates invested in one of Musk’s rivals, Synchron, a company that already has devices implanted in the brains of some humans with neurological conditions, enabling them to interact with a computer and even to tweet to Musk’s own social media platform by thought alone.

Associate Professor Greg Martin

At the University of Sydney, Greg has been Chair (Head) of Department, Sociology and Social Policy (2016-2018), Interim Deputy Head of School, Social and Political Sciences (2021-2023), and is currently Associate Dean, Student Affairs.

From 2016-2020, Greg was an Editor of The Sociological Review (Britain's oldest sociology journal and one of the world's top-ranked). He is Associate Editor of Crime Media Culture (2010-present), and has been a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Social Movement Studies since its inception in 2002. Greg is founding co-Editor of the book series, Emerald Studies in Activist Criminology. 

Associate Professor Martin recently published The Emerald International Handbook of Activist Criminology  with Emerald Publishing. 

Although intervention and campaigning have long been integral to critical criminology, in recent years, criminal justice activism has taken new directions and gathered momentum, especially with the advent of digital technologies and social media. These have made it easier than ever for ordinary citizens and professional journalists alike to comment on perceived injustices and potentially intervene in formal criminal justice processes.

Collectively, The Emerald International Handbook of Activist Criminology explores the contemporary terrain around new and emergent issues and forms of activism, and offers cutting edge conceptualizations of the methodological and practical applications of activist engagement, solidarity, and resistance.

Citation: Canning, V., Martin, G. and Tombs, S. (eds) (2023) The Emerald International Handbook of Activist Criminology. Bingley: Emerald Publishing. 

The 2023/24 Criminal Law CPD Series, presented by the Sydney Institute of Criminology, is an innovative educational program made up of 8 recorded webinars.

Our series covers a wide range of criminal law topics, including criminal procedure, evidence law, and criminal advocacy. Led by experienced legal professionals, our webinars are designed to help you stay up to date with the latest developments in criminal law and earn your mandatory CPD points.

A new webinar will be released each month from April to November and will include a quiz to test your comprehension of the material being discussed.  

Register now for the full series or individual webinars and enjoy the flexibility of watching at your own pace from any location at any time.  

Information for lawyers and barristers
If this educational activity is relevant to your professional development and practice of the law, then you should claim 1.5 MCLE/CPD points per seminar attended.

Practitioners are advised to check with the CPD governing body in their jurisdiction for the most accurate and up-to-date information. Find out about interstate accreditation.

Cost: Full series (8 x webinars) = $300 
Individual webinar(s) = $50

Non-consensual sexual offence law reform in Western Australia

Substantive Law 

Dr Andrew Dyer -  Available now

The Attorney-General of Western Australia has asked that State’s Law Reform Commission to review Western Australia’s sexual offence laws. In December 2022, the Commission published a Discussion Paper that deals with the law relating to sexual consent and the operation of honest and reasonable mistake of fact in non-consensual sexual offence proceedings. This seminar will consider the various reform options. 

Vulnerable witness advocacy

Practice Management and Business Skills, Ethics and professional responsibility

Philip Hogan -  Available 25 May 2023

This seminar will discuss the definition of a vulnerable witness in the Criminal Procedure Act 1986 (NSW) and the provisions in the Act that allow for the use of pre-recorded evidence and provide for other alternative means of giving evidence. The seminar will particularly consider the way a complainant’s evidence is adduced in the Child Sexual Assault Program operating in some NSW courts. There will also be some discussion of Evidence Act 1995 (NSW) provisions that may be relevant to the evidence of a vulnerable witness. Finally, the seminar will cover relevant provisions of the Equality before the Law Bench Book and some findings of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. 

Should Deceptive Sex Always Be Rape? Dr Andrew Dyer - Substantive Law

The Role of the Crown Prosecutor in NSW Mr Brett Hatfield Practice - Management and Business Skills, Ethics and professional responsibility

The Reliability and Credibility of Eyewitnesses Associate Professor Helen Paterson - Substantive Law

Ethical Practice for Junior Criminal Law Barristers Ms Talitha Hennessy - Ethics and professional responsibility

Myths, Misconceptions and Mixed Messages: An Early Look at the New Tendency and Coincidence Evidence Provisions Professor David Hamer - Substantive Law

Advocacy in the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal Mr John Stratton SC - Professional Skills

The Work of the Mental Health Review Tribunal Judge Paul Lakatos SC - Professional Skills

Current Issues in Criminal Justice (CICJ) provides detailed analysis of national and international issues by a range of outstanding contributors. It includes contemporary comments, with discussion at the cutting edge of the crime and justice debate, as well as reviews of recently released books.

CICJ accepts submissions on a rolling basis.

Editor: Dr Justin Ellis, member of the Sydney Institute of Criminology

You can access current and previous issues of Current Issues in Criminal Justice here.

If you have a book suitable for review by CICJ, please email the books editor, Celine Van Golde

celine.vangolde@sydney.edu.au

Articles

Rethinking the primacy of consent: community education and ethical sex

Gail Mason

Abstract: Some weighty claims are made about the capacity of consent education to address the problem of sexual exploitation and violence. The modern notion of consent has its origins in the criminal law where it has a specific and narrow function as the cardinal marker between rape and legal sex. This prompts us to ask: how fit for purpose is the concept of consent outside of the criminal law or, more specifically, how fit for purpose is consent in the context of primary prevention education? This article draws on an empirical study in the Australian state of New South Wales to examine how consent is mobilised and explained in community programs and campaigns that deliver respectful or healthy relationship education. The research shows that consent is a preferred narrative through which many educational initiatives tackle sexual exploitation and promote sexual respect. The article explores some of the limits of the language through which consent is defined and explained in these programs. Ultimately, however, it argues that we should be concerned not just with how consent is defined but, more fundamentally, with the prioritisation of consent as a primary narrative through which to tackle sexual exploitation. Consent is merely the minimum threshold necessary for legal sex. It is not a signifier of ethical or good sex.

‘You, of all people’: the inappropriateness of imputing knowledge of victim harm onto sexually abused child sexual offenders during sentencing

Bronwyn Arnold

Abstract: The law presumes that children who are sexually abused will experience long-term physical and/or psychological harm. The research suggests that child sexual abuse can cause cognitive distortions and may reduce the victim’s ability to empathise with others. Despite this, when it comes to sentencing child sexual offenders who were also victims of childhood sexual abuse, some judges impute knowledge of the victims’ harm onto the offenders. This article examines 13 sentencing remarks made in New South Wales, Tasmania and Victoria between 2005 and 2018 containing these imputations and discusses whether these statements are appropriate when considering the empirical evidence. The sentencing remarks show that the victims’ lived experiences align with the literature. This article argues that it is inappropriate for sentencing judges to impute knowledge of the victims’ harm onto offenders, and similar statements should be avoided in future.

Threats of fire in the context of domestic and family violence: views on prevalence, forms and contexts from service providers in Queensland

Joseph Lelliott & Rebecca Wallis

Abstract: A perpetrator’s use of fire to coerce, control and punish a current or former partner has been the subject of increased attention in media reporting and research, particularly following several high-profile murders of women in Queensland. Building on this, the study set out in this article examines threats of fire in the context of domestic and family violence. These threats may involve the dousing of persons or property with flammable substances (commonly petrol), as well as purely verbal or implicit threats where there is no use of accelerant. This article draws on interview data with 17 Domestic and Family Violence (DFV) non-government service providers collected in 2021 and analyses participants’ views on the prevalence, forms and contexts of threats of fire. It concludes that such threats take a variety of forms, likely occur as part of an escalation of a pattern of previous abusive behaviour, and can be difficult for law enforcement and other service providers to identify. This article identifies the need for better responses to threats of fire and further research into this manifestation of coercive and controlling behaviour.

Comprehension problems that jurors encounter with expert evidence in online child pornography trials

Jacqueline Horan & Blake M. McKimmie

Abstract: Over the last two decades, there has been a massive world-wide increase in the prosecution of charges of possessing online pornography. Digital expert evidence is relied upon in such prosecutions in order to satisfy the charge element of ‘possession’. Little is known about the effectiveness of such expert evidence in proving that the defendant’s computer contained such offensive material. This article provides a qualitative analysis of how effective such expert evidence is by analysing three illustrative contemporary Australian online pornography trials where the authors interviewed some of the jurors and other trial participants about their perceptions of the digital expert evidence. We found that jurors had difficulty with the way some experts presented information rather than the complexity of the information. Practical suggestions to improve digital expert evidence are discussed, including the need for more and better use of visual aids.

Understanding the context for police avoidance: the impact of sexual identity, police legitimacy and legal cynicism on willingness to report hate crime

Jordan C. Grasso, Valerie Jenness & Stefan Vogler

Abstract: Developed over decades, a body of research identifies the factors that affect people’s willingness to report crime to law enforcement. In a context in which studies of anti-LGBTQ violence and peoples’ responses to such victimisation are proliferating, a timely question warrants attention: What predicts the willingness of sexual minorities (SMs) (ie, lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer) to report hate crime to the police? Utilising original data collected from a multi-site survey, this article assesses factors that shape the probability that young SMs will report bias-motivated crime victimisation to the police. We find that, compared to their non-SM heterosexual counterparts, SMs express a wider range of willingness to report crime as well as more legal cynicism and lower perceptions of police legitimacy. Our multivariate analyses reveal that SM identity indirectly influences reporting behaviour vis-a-vis legal cynicism and perceptions of police legitimacy. The implications of these findings for future research are discussed in the context of a growing body of literature that reveals the plethora of ways in which LGBTQ communities are both over-policed and underserved.

Book Reviews 

The horror of police by Travis Linnemann, University of Minnesota Press, $24.95 (paper), ISBN 978-1-5179-0592-7, $100.00 (cloth). ISBN 978-1-5179-0591-0, 288 pages.

Murray Lee

‘Dread and menace sitting just behind the familiar: this is the place from which horror fiction begins’ (p. 1). So begins the second paragraph of Travis Linnemann’s The Horror of Police, a book in which the author stitches together a convincing argument that police are the monsters among us. Jumping backwards and forwards from the ‘cops of our imagination to the cops of our streets’ (p. 31), the book is part cultural studies, part criminology, part media and film criticism, part history, part philosophy and part horror story. It is perhaps the bending of the non-fiction genre (and disciplinary silos) that gives the book its vibrancy and allows Linnemann to not only weave a coherent narrative, but to do so in a way that generates its own atmosphere, intrigue and suspense. That is not to say the book is somehow superficial or a work of fancy. This is a serious piece of scholarship, heavy with citations and conceptually moored in the work of scholars such as Eugene Thacker and Mark Fisher and fiction writers such as H. P. Lovecraft. Like critical policing scholars before him, Linnemann wants the reader to imagine the unimaginable—a world without police; police being monsters we wilfully mis-identify.

Webinar: Meth and Sex: What Does The Law Say?

Australian law, sexual consent and its relationship to methamphetamine ("ice") intoxication. Friday 12th of May at 12-1pm (AEST) by Jarryd Bartle, Associate Lecturer within Criminology and Justice Studies at RMIT University. Register 

Conference: ‘Emerging Challenges in the management of sexual assault trials.’

Monash University's Transnational Criminal Law Group in conjunction with the Victorian Juries Commissioner's Office and the Court of the Future Network is organising a one-day conference scheduled on 9th June 2023. Register. 

International Society for the Study of Rural Crime Mentoring Worshop for Masters and PhD candidates and early career researchers: 

Applications Close: 31 May 2023

Applicants working in rural criminology or related fields are invited for one or both of the following (free, online) programs: Academic publications and jobs, Grants, impact and engagement. See here

Lecturer in Criminology: Queen's University Belfast, School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work

Applications Close: 22 May 2023

Queen’s University Belfast, is currently seeking to appoint two exceptional candidates to the posts of Lecturer in Criminology. See here

Call for Papers: Law and Society Association of Australia and New Zealand

Deadline for Submissions: 25 August 2023 

The Law and Society Association of Australia and New Zealand (LSAANZ) is inviting socio-legal scholars and others working at the intersections of law and society to submit panel and abstract proposals for its 2023 in-person conference: Voice, Resistance, and Repair: Law and living together. Find more details here.

Call for Abstracts: Algorithmic Justice Symposium

The University of Newcastle School of Law and Justice, Centre for Law and Social Justice 

Submissions Close: 9 June 2023

The University of Newcastle School of Law and Justice, Centre for Law and Social Justice, invites expressions of interest from academics, lawyers, advocates and other interested persons to participate in its 2023 Algorithmic Justice Symposium. The Symposium will be held on Friday 14 July 2023 from 9.30am – 5.00pm at the University of Newcastle’s Sydney Campus at Martin Place in Sydney (55 Elizabeth Street). It is a hybrid (online and in person) event, and international submissions are welcomed. See here

Call for participants: Teaching criminology in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand 

Researchers at Deakin University, the University of Wollongong, Monash University, and Te Herenga Waka: Victoria University of Wellington want to understand the challenges ongoing, contract, and sessional academics' face in teaching criminology at Australian and Aotearoa New Zealand universities.

Study details 

Participation is open to tenured, contract, or sessional staff who are currently teaching criminology at one or more tertiary learning institutions in Australia or Aotearoa New Zealand. 

If you are interested in knowing more about the study and how to participate, please click on this link if you are an ongoing or contract member of staff or this link if you are a sessional teacher. 

If you have any additional questions about the study, please contact a member of our research team at kate.burns@monash.edu. 

Just Futures National Open Grant Round, Australian Communities Foundation

Applications close: 26th May 2023

The Just Futures National Open Grant Round is a partnership between Paul Ramsay Foundation (PRF) and Australian Communities Foundation. 

Associate Director Therapeutic JusticeVictoria Legal Aid 

Applications close: Sunday 14 May 2023.

Victoria Legal Aid are seeking an influential and experienced leader to join their organisation as the Associate Director, Therapeutic Justice. See here

Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research

Applications Close: 17 May 2023

BOCSAR are seeking a highly motivated and enthusiastic person to join the team at the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research as an Information Officer/ Project Officer. This is a rare opportunity for a recent graduate or someone starting their career in the criminology/social science field to work at one of Australia’s leading crime research and reporting agencies.

About this role

The Information Officer/Project Officer is a key member of the Reporting and Insights Team. They develop, prepare and deliver reports, analysis and interpretation of statistical information to government, the media, the public and others that inform and enable DCJ to fulfil its strategic service delivery objectives in line with NSW Government reform directions and legislative requirements.

Key responsibilities

·Conduct analysis on data related to crime trends and patterns;

·Assist in communicating criminal justice data, such as crime trends, to a broad audience;

·Collaborate with the Reporting and Insights team to prepare statistical reports, complying with reporting requirements and working to fixed deadlines;

·Provide timely and accurate information on crime and criminal justice in NSW with objective and balanced interpretation of the data;

·Prepare advice in the form of briefs, reports and presentations in response to Ministerial, Cabinet or DCJ requests; and

·Work effectively with team members towards continuous improvement of internal processes, reporting products and data communication and provide feedback and advice on research and analysis undertaken.

Location: The role located at Parramatta at least two days per week (Wed and Thu) with flexibility available other days.

About You: 

· excellent written and verbal communications skills;is a problem solver with a keen interest in criminal justice;

· proficiency in using Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, and other similar software; strong analytical and critical thinking skills;

·proven ability to work collaboratively as part of a team; strong initiative and attention to detail; and

· Bachelor (with honours) or Post Graduate degree in Criminology, behavioural science or a related field with a statistical/data analysis component.

If this sounds like you, please send your CV and a cover letter (up to two pages) to Karen.Freeman@justice.nsw.gov.au. 

'Sovereign citizens' in the courts

Tuesday 2 May 2023 with Damien Carrick 

We've all heard of 'sovereign citizens', a term referring to people who don't believe the law applies to them. But how much do we know about this group and its impact on the courts?

Guest: Mark Douglass – Magistrate, NSW Local Court

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