On 21 May, the Faculty of Law hosts the launch of a new research hub for prison-related issues. The website of the Australian Prisons Project is part of an Australian Research Council project housed in the Faculty and led by Professor Chris Cunneen. The website will be launched by Professor Mark Findlay, Director of the Institute of Criminology. 

The Prison Project aims to identify changes in penal culture over the last 25 years which have led to a re-emergence of imprisonment as a frontline criminal justice strategy.  The Project will seek to understand contemporary penal culture and how it has developed across law, policy and practice through a range of comparative analyses and methodologies. The research will cover vulnerable populations in the prison system such as women, Indigenous people and people with mental illness, the rise of the `risk` paradigm, the impact of terrorism on the penal realm, and the relevance of changes in sentencing and bail law.

The Australian Prison Project website can be found at www.app.unsw.edu.au