This article seeks to draw conclusions about the potential impact of the Crimes Amendment (Abolition of Defensive Homicide) Act 2014 (Vic). We do so by considering whether defensive homicide served as a safety net in the 2014 case of Director of Public Prosecutions (Vic) v Williams. The article...

This paper examines the theory behind and some examples of the relationships between gender, language, cognition and perception in the context of the criminal justice system. In particular, we consider the language of domestic violence and sexual assault and how words and communication styles...

How do principles or notions concerning fairness of proceedings tend to play out in Australian rape trials? We look at two types of legislative provisions pertaining to evidence in chief and cross-examination that have been altered in the last three decades in Australia. They were enacted to...

During the outbreak of emerging infectious diseases scientists and public health officials play a key role in informing communities about what is happening, why and what they can do about it, and the news media are critical to how expert knowledge is presented to the public. Therefore, it is...

[Extract] Writing this chapter has allowed and indeed required a reflective contemplation of the process of doing research, which is rarely available in the day-to-day world of both academic and professional research. Deciding upon a methodological approach is inevitably constrained by the time...

Unexplained wealth laws are a relatively recent development in confiscation law, which require a person who lives beyond their apparent means to justify the legitimacy of their financial circumstances. Unexplained wealth laws are currently in place in the Northern Territory and Western...

Confiscation of illegally obtained proceeds of crime is a key strategy for disrupting criminal activity, especially serious and organised crime. Confiscation of this nature serves a number of purposes. First, it seeks to deter crime by reducing its profitability, as well as diminishing...

Within the ‘what works' literature, recidivism is typically embraced as the sole or primary outcome measure of success for offender intervention programs. Often, no account is taken of other important measures for evaluating program success. As such, our understanding of what works is based...

The suspended sentence has been described as the lsquo;Sword of Damocles' and praised as a means of exploiting the deterrent effects of prison while avoiding some of its human and financial costs. The deterrent value of suspended sentences is said to derive from the fact that the consequences of...