law-crime-and-justice

It's time to rethink how we treat child sex offenders

But having spoken to several over the years, I now can.

Some readers may find the concepts in this article confronting.

Many were damaged as children, and while that is no excuse, healing that damage may be the most effective way to prevent the sexual abuse of children.

You might find this approach scandalous, or think that I'm supportive or lenient or condoning the abuse of children. I am not.

I am not an apologist for anyone who hurts, or even thinks about hurting, a child.

Cast, audience of gay play have tyres slashed in 'hateful' attack

Lane Cove Theatre Company's production of Holding the Man has had a sold out season, but it appears not everyone is a fan of the show.

After last night's performance, 12 cast and audience members returned to their vehicles outside The Performance Space at Longeuville, to find their tyres had been slashed.

A police spokesperson said they would investigate "motives of bias" behind the attack.

It is not the first time the production, which tells the 15-year love story of two men, has been targeted.

Internet of incarceration: How AI could put an end to prisons as we know them

As dean of Swinburne University's Law School, he's working to have most wardens replaced by a system of advanced artificial intelligence connected to a network of high-tech sensors.

Called the Technological Incarceration Project, the idea is to make not so much an internet of things as an internet of incarceration.

Professor Hunter's team is researching an advanced form of home detention, using artificial intelligence, machine-learning algorithms and lightweight electronic sensors to monitor convicted offenders on a 24-hour basis.

Bollard art: What do Melburnians think of the city's 'boll-art'?

Parenting expert sues Disney and Pixar over Inside Out movie

Denise Daniels said the animated film, featuring colour-coded characters representing individual human emotions, mirrors a children's program called The Moodsters hat she conceived and pitched to Disney every year from 2005 to 2009.

In a complaint filed in the Los Angeles federal court, Ms Daniels said she had an 'implied-in-fact' contract with Disney requiring that she be paid from box office, DVD, Blu-Ray, iTunes and merchandise revenue from Inside Out.

The film has grossed more than $US850 million worldwide since its June 2015 release.

"It was like rape": Women in Japan tricked into pornography

Conmen promising fortune and fame trick young women into signing modelling contracts, then later threaten them if they do not do what they ask.

Kurumin Aroma, 27, was one of them.

She dreamt of one day becoming a TV star or a musician.

When she was approached on the streets of Tokyo by a man who offered to give her a start in modelling, she thought she would take a chance.

Tattoo trial could determine the legal future of Japan's taboo ink tradition

As strange as it sounds, it's the truth. In Japan, tattooing can only be done legally by a doctor, though up until the Osaka raids police had only targeted tattooists linked to the yakuza, Japan's powerful organised crime syndicates.

The unusual legal situation is due to regulations aimed at keeping permanent-make-up-style tattooists in check — the same health notice also listed laser hair removal and chemical peels as doctor-only procedures.

Manchester attack: How mums and dads helped their kids escape the carnage

At least 22 people were killed and 59 others taken to hospital after a suicide bomber blew himself up in the Manchester Arena.

Europe correspondent Steve Cannane spoke with a number of parents who described the harrowing scenes as they tried to usher their children to safety.

'I saw two little girls screaming with no parents'

Manchester attack: First victims named

Twenty-two people were killed and 59 others injured when a suicide bomber struck as thousands of people streamed out of an Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena.

Many of the victims were teenagers or children who had been seeing the pop superstar perform.

Among them was eight-year-old Saffie Rose Roussos.

Ice-addicted python just one of hundreds of animals in prison rehabilitation

The jungle python was seized during a police raid of an ice lab where it had absorbed the drug through its skin, said Ian Mitchell, a senior overseer at the John Morony Correctional Complex in Berkshire Park.

He said the snake's methamphetamine addiction made it more confused, erratic and aggressive than it would normally be and it needed six weeks of detoxification at the prison's wildlife care centre.