Updates and latest news

The Victorian Ombudsman has observed that people detained in custody in Victoria face a greater risk of harm than at any time in the past decade.  Against this context, the need for accountability for what takes place in Victorian prisons is greater than ever, to ensure that people are kept safe by those entrusted with their care. But a...

Our contribution to the Royal Commission comes from the perspective of our Police Accountability Project clients, some of whom have been respondents to family violence complaints and/or victims of family violence.

This short submission highlight common concerns to both groups, which relate to how police have responded to family violence issues and how those complaints in turn, are received and…

The family and community trauma caused by a death in custody cannot be over-stated.

A respected Aboriginal man from central Australia died in Darwin’s police cells two weeks ago. Few facts are known: he was taken into custody for minor alcohol-related offences, he was detained under new “paperless arrest” police powers, he was found dead in his cell about three…

Before these cameras are rolled out across the state, Victorians should consider whether police body cameras are a desirable approach to counter police misconduct. That is, we should ask: Will BWCs actually improve police accountability?

Victoria Police are currently piloting ‘stop & search’ receipting in Dandenong and Moonee Valley. Here are five things you should know about receipting.

On 15th April 2015 an IBAC hearing into a potential culture of violence within the Victoria Police Service at Ballarat was due to be heard at the County Court in Melbourne.

The Police Accountability Project is deeply concerned by accounts given by people experienced the police raids in Melbourne this weekend, of being racially abused and assaulted by Police members involved.

Police and Protective Services Officers (PSOs) will issue receipts to members of the community initially in the Moonee Valley and Greater Dandenong Local Government Areas (LGAs) from 30 March until the end of December 2015

We are calling for a wider review of powers, weapons and training associated with the PSO program currently in operating on Victoria’s public transport network. As reports of the use of capsicum weapons against children stretch over many years it is important that this is not treated as an isolated incident.

The Victorian Police Commissioner Ken Lay announced his resignation in early January 2015, to near universal acclaim. Anthony Kelly from the Flemington Kensington Community Legal Centre provides a restrospective on his work dealing with racism

An appeal decision has been handed down in the Victorian Supreme Court which could set back Victoria Police efforts to end racial profiling in Victoria.

The outcome overturns magistrate Duncan Reynolds’ 2013 ruling that police do not have an “unfettered” right to randomly stop and check vehicles.

Professor Philip Alston delivered a scathing indictment of Australia’s recent legislative response to perceived security issues. Titled “Could Australia really become a police state?” the speech detailed the striking similarities between the Federal Government’s recent swathe of security measures and the activities of totalitarian governments throughout modern history.

A feature article in the most recent Law Institute Journal, In Search of Certainty, examines the issues surrounding the new Victoria Police Act and its implications for police accountability in Victoria.

Two young men from Flemington, Daniel Haile Michael and Maki Issa have been shortlisted for the Australian Human Rights Commission’s Young People’s Human Rights Medal for their work against racial profiling.

A Federal Senator has made a strong call for an independent body to investigate and prosecute cases of misconduct by police in Victoria.   In a speech to Federal Senate on Tuesday 30th September, Senator Gavin Marshall (Victoria—Deputy President of the Senate and Chair of Committees) welcomed the compensation recently awarded to Ms Corinna Horvath who was brutally assaulted...

Corrinna Horvath has recieved a welcome and a significant compensation from the State of Victoria along with an apology from Chief Commissioner Ken Lay.

A death we need to learn from Findings from the long running inquest into the death of a young Ethiopian-Australian man, Michael Atakelt. who was found dead in the Maribyrnong River in 2011 were handed down on Thursday 28th August, 2014. Michael’s body was found floating near the Raleigh Rd, Maribyrnong pontoon on July 7, 2011.  Issues had been...

When it comes to police violence and misconduct Victoria’s laws protect police, not its citizens. The new Victoria Police Act 2013, which came into force in July, may already need to be amended due to a recent United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) decision.

After decades of public controversy, the British Government has launched a new scheme to monitor and hold police stop and search practices to account.   In a move that could be replicated by Victoria Police in Australia, all police forces in England and Wales have agreed to adopt a new government code of conduct on the use of their...

Thirteen Victorian and Australian legal, human rights and civil society organisations have today called for a substantive response by the State of Victoria to the recent findings of the United Nations Human Rights Committee on the long-running case of Victorian woman, Corinna Horvath.

The death in custody of Mulrunji Doomadgee on Palm Island on November 19, 2004 and the protests that followed,  are tragic and clear demonstrations of the need for police accountability. Following Doomadgee’s death, the Attorney General indicted Senior Sargent Chris Hurley for a criminal trial. This was the first time action of this kind had been taken by the...

We continue to monitor and engage with the roll out of the commitments made by Victoria Police in the Equality is Not the Same report and we want to keep you up to date.

The Australian Lawyers Alliance’s highly regarded Victorian Civil Justice Award 2014 has been awarded to the Flemington and Kensington Community Legal Centre, in recognition of its outstanding work representing all the way to the United Nations, a young Victorian woman, Corinna Horvath, who was subjected to police brutality. Corinna Horvath was brutally assaulted by a group of police during a raid on...

A powerful condemnation of the failure of Victoria’s laws to provide adequate remedies to victims of police violence has been delivered by the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) in the recent and long awaited decision of Horvath v Australia (‘Horvath’).

In a damning decision, the United Nations Human Rights Committee has found that remedying police violence requires Victoria to take steps it has shirked up to this point.

Exciting moves are afoot to form a community-based ‘Racial Profiling Monitoring Project’ to monitor the outcomes of the Vicpol Equality Report

In a recent article in the Melbourne Age, ‘African youth in New Year’s brawl’ Salvation Army Major Brendan Nottle was quoted as saying:

“Rather than take the approach that we’re not going to talk about this for fear of being branded racist, or saying, ‘why are these young people here, why don’t they integrate’, we actually need to say this…

Police killings are big news, but the investigations that follow have unearthed a culture of violence without accountability. The solution is civilian investigators – but there are a few myths that need to be dispelled first, writes Tamar Hopkins