Policy Focus

 

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30 Jun 2021

A recent report by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research concluded that there was no significant spike in domestic violence during COVID lockdowns. However, community legal centres say that crime data fails to capture the whole picture.

10 Feb 2021

The health and safety of our communities depend on a future where holistic, caring and healing approaches to drug use are the norm.

10 Feb 2021

 Fair Treatment is a public advocacy campaign led by Uniting NSW-ACT for the better resourcing of evidence-based harm reduction strategies, and the decriminalisation (removal of court processing and criminal penalties including jail terms) of personal use of small quantities of currently illicit drugs. In this article, Stafford Sanders proposes that we need to rethink our approach to drug policy and learn from worldwide best practice, such as the Portugal model of decriminalisation.

10 Feb 2021

In the last 12 years, there has been an almost twentyfold increase in strip searches in New South Wales. This harmful proactive policing practice is disproportionately targeting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and young people, particularly in lower socio-economic areas and regional towns.