RLC has long been advocating to end pre-emptive policing in the form of the STMP which allows police to place repeat offenders or those they think might commit crimes in the future on a secret watch list.
As Dr Vicki Sentas explained, children on the list are “subject to repeated police interactions" and in some cases, young people have been unlawfully searched by police "on the sole basis that they're on the STMP". The watchlist “appears to be authorising a systemic approach of arbitrary interference with a person’s everyday life for future crime prevention,” she said.
“People on the STMP have a right to know why,” said Dr Sentas. “They don’t at the moment. It’s basic procedural fairness.”
RLC’s Police Powers solicitor Sam Lee welcomed the NSW Parliamentary Committee on Law and Safety recommendation that the STMP policy be made public, but says more needs to be done: “... What we really want to see is for those under the age of 18 to be removed from this aggressive policing program, which entrenches young people into the criminal justice system”.
Read the full article (Hannah Ryan, BuzzFeed News, 21 September 2018)
See Also:
The Policing Young People in NSW report (Youth Justice Coalition, 2017)
