Police forces - Australia

New year Honours: We are pleased to publish and recognise the policing and public safety recipients of the UK and overseas 2026 New Year Honours. The team at Policing Insight offer our congratulations and thank all the recipients for their service.

FEATURE: The horrific terrorist attack on Bondi Beach this week – the worst in Australia’s history – has once again highlighted both the continuing critical threat of terrorism, and the importance of efforts to identify individuals at risk of radicalisation and violent extremism; Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth looks at the role of the UK’s Prevent Programme in doing just that.

OPINION: Artificial intelligence (AI) AI is advancing rapidly, but human systems remain slow and often focused on immediate pressures; Odette Meli, former Co-ordinator of the Australian Federal Police’s Strategic Insights Centre, warns that without “leadership uplift and value-aligned governance” AI will amplify organisational weaknesses, and points to how policing in the UK, Australia and New Zealand have structured AI governance as an example of what can be done.

FEATURE: In the wake of Ontario’s Building Bridges @ Blue conference, Policing Insight’s Matthew Wood explores the development of evidence-based policing across Canada, an approach that is gaining momentum but which faces significant challenges around governance, the disconnect between funding and outcomes, and the need to share outcomes.

ANALYSIS: Amid media headlines that Australia is in a ‘youth crime crisis’, Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan has announced an “adult time for violent crime” approach that could see children as young as 14 tried in adult courts and facing long sentences; Macquarie University Associate Professor in Criminology Dr Alex Simpson argues that the data doesn’t support such an approach, which is politicising youth violence.

REPORT LAUNCH: A new thematic report exploring how the issue of domestic abuse and family violence is being tackled across the world, how this has changed, and how it continues to evolve, has been launched by Policing Insight; the report examines the innovations, legal reforms and persistent challenges around the responses to domestic abuse and family violence, as agencies strive to protect victims, reduce demand and prevent further tragedy.

FEATURE: A recent report by the Vulnerability & Policing Futures Research Centre which explores the responses to family violence and domestic abuse in Victoria Police and Greater Manchester Police has highlighted the continuing challenges around successfully implementing support and change programmes for perpetrators of domestic abuse when services for victim/survivors are still inadequate, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

FEATURE: Policing and artificial intelligence (AI) experts from the UK, Australia, US, Canada and the UAE came together recently to explore international insights into policing in the age of AI, highlighting the challenges around improving tech capability, overcoming fragmentation, the need to engage and explain to the public and police staff, and the dangers of eroding police discretion, as well as the increasing threats from the criminal use of AI, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

INTERVIEW: Since Krissy Barrett’s appointment last month as Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police (AFP), she has been setting out some of the challenges facing the organisation in the current policing landscape; she recently spoke to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons about her aims for leading the force to meet the evolving threats, the AFP’s unique technical and collaborative capabilities, and her ambition to ensure the AFP is “the best police agency in the world to work in”.

OPINION: Following months of headlines and community concerns around youth violence in Victoria and its capital Melbourne, the State Government recently announced plans to create a specialist team focused on early intervention and mentorship, similar to the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit; Senior Criminology Lecturer Dr Joel McGregor of Swinburne University of Technology believes a well-funded, multi-agency, public health approach such as this could deliver long-term change.

OPINION: Recent headlines around the Pacific island nations’ role in drug production and trafficking have seen comparisons made with Latin America’s cartel-dominated countries; but John Coyne, Director of National Security Programs at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, warns that the reality is much more nuanced, and that the way to tackle the ‘smugglers haven’ is through continued partnership and collaboration between Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific islands.

FEATURE: A recent report into police-perpetrated family violence among officers from Australia’s Victoria Police is calling for an “urgent paradigm shift” away from the force’s role in responding to family violence to fund to more community-focused initiatives, amid concerns around a “culture of officers minimising and dismissing offending”, as well as colluding with perpetrators and misidentifying victim-survivors as perpetrators, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

OPINION: The Australia New Zealand Policing Advisory Agency (ANZPAA) recently published its revised Anti-Racism and Cultural Diversity Principles, designed to provide a framework for police “to address racism and strengthen collaborative partnerships”; Jacqueline Durand, ANZPAA’s Assistant Director of Policy and Projects, explains why the Principles have been updated, the important differences between anti-racism and cultural awareness, and the vital role leadership plays in delivering this proactive approach.

OPINION: New bail laws introduced in Victoria this summer aim to tackle repeat high-harm offending with a new ‘high-harm test’ and tougher rules on offences committed while on bail; but Kavitha Vipulananda, author, speaker and reform consultant, highlights Law Institute of Victoria concerns around disproportionality stemming from the new legislation, and urges the state Government to focus more on wraparound services and rehabilitation or risk repeating past failures.

OPINION: A judgment delivered this week by the Supreme Court of New South Wales, which found that a strip search carried out by New South Wales Police of festival goer Raya Meredith (the lead plaintiff in a class action) was unlawful, could have significant implications for the way police across Australia carry out strip searches, says UNSW Associate Professor and Senior Law Lecturer, Dr Vicki Sentas.

FEATURE: The latest review of Queensland Police Service watch-houses – buildings designed to offer temporary accommodation for prisoners before transfer to prison or court – has highlighted increased stress and injury for staff due to poor working conditions, and facilities in widespread disrepair leading to damaging impacts on the health and wellbeing of detainees, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

OPINION: Increases in knife-crime offences have prompted calls for the introduction of Jack’s Law in Victoria, an approach enabling police to carry out random ‘wanding’ searches for weapons that is already in place in several Australian states including Queensland and New South Wales; but Criminology Senior Lecturer Dr Joel McGregor of Swinburne University of Technology argues that research suggests the approach has little benefit, and that addressing prevention and support would be more effective.

OPINION: The growing Chinese policing influence and presence in Solomon Islands, including a law enforcement approach that focuses more on controlling communities than serving them, should raise concerns for Australia and its partners about what kind of policing model will define the Pacific’s future, warn Dr John Coyne and Raelene Lockhorst of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).

OPINION: With research indicating that at least 12% of female respondents in intimate partner violence cases in Victoria are misidentified as perpetrators – and some organisations suggesting the figure, particularly for indigenous and migrant women, could be as high as 50% – Kavitha Vipulananda, author, speaker and reform consultant, sets out a range of reforms for police in Victoria and agencies more widely across Australia that could address the injustices based in systemic issues that are faced by vulnerable women.

ANALYSIS: In the latest in this series of articles exploring the links between sport and organised crime, Policing Insight’s Chris Dalby looks at the increasing efforts of drug cartels to infiltrate football as an opportunity to launder dirty money, set up illegal betting activity and extend their narcotics networks, amid warnings that ineffective existing ownership legislation has meant that in some cases the groundwork for cartel infiltration has already been laid.

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: The ANZPAA Police Conference 2025 (PC25) will be held in Melbourne, Australia this November. Hosted by Police Commissioners from across Australia and New Zealand, the conference will centre around the theme “Policing for the Future: What Matters Most” - to Commissioners, frontline officers, and the communities they serve.

FEATURE: The recently published Queensland Police Service (QPS) Commissioner’s 100-day review has highlighted a force facing “significant mission creep” as officers perform roles outside their core remit, leaving many suffering from fatigue and burnout; the review also puts forward 65 recommendations providing a “fundamental opportunity” for QPS to reaffirm its core purpose and build a “resilient, responsive, and community-focused policing organisation”, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

OPINION: With the changing nature of terrorist threats and the proscription of Palestine Action, former Police Scotland superintendent Martin Gallagher, now an author, journalist and terrorism expert, looks at what is potentially emerging as a new ‘Fifth Wave’ of global terrorism, its relationship with crime, and the possible impact of branding criminal organisations as terrorist groups.

ANALYSIS: Recent horrific events and the accompanying media headlines have led some to believe Australia is in the grip of a knife crime epidemic; in this final article in a series from The Conversation on weapons and violence in Australia, Bond University Associate Professor Terry Goldsworthy explores the statistics around violent crime and weapons offences across Australia, and how the public perception in some quarters of a significant rise in crime is not reflected by the data.