CCLJ researchers have completed a report on the troubling legacies of the use of penalty notices by NSW Police as part of the NSW Government’s Covid-19 pandemic response.
Commissioned by the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC), the Aboriginal Legal Service NSW/ACT (ALS) and the Redfern Legal Centre (RLC), and focused on the ‘Delta Wave’ period (June-November 2021), the report documents the way in which rapid (and sometimes confusing) public heath order-marking, reliance on high value ‘on the spot’ fines, and intensive ‘zero tolerance’ style enforcement by police left legacies of significant fine debt and damaged community-police relations in some of the most disadvantaged parts of Sydney and NSW, including Aboriginal communities in western NSW towns.
In addition to continuing CCLJ’s commitment to research that support the advocacy and reform activities of organisations like PIAC, ALS and RLC, another very pleasing aspect of the report was the major contribution made by current UNSW Law and Justice students, Jacky Gan, Chloe Waine, Chelsi Williams and Sam Mullins.