Senior Lecturer, Centre for Law & Justice, Charles Sturt University
Katherine McFarlane holds a Bachelor of Arts/Law from the University of Sydney and a Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice from the College of Law, Sydney. She recently completed a PhD in Law at UNSW, examining ‘Care-criminalisation’: the involvement of children in out of home care in the NSW criminal justice system’.
Kath has provided legal and policy advice to a range of clients, including to prisoners via the “The Mulawa Project”, a legal pro bono scheme she established and ran for several years, and as an Official Visitor to NSW prisons. Admitted as a solicitor in NSW in 1996, she worked as a criminal lawyer and was the principal solicitor at the University of Technology’s Community Law and Legal Research Centre from 1998-2000. She has held a variety of policy and research roles in child welfare and criminal justice, across bureaucracy, academia and politics, including as a senior policy officer in the Attorney Generals’ Department, Executive Officer of the NSW Sentencing Council and Executive Officer of the NSW Children’s Court.
Kath was a consultant to the Department of Community Services’ longitudinal study of the outcomes for children in OOHC, and a member both of the NSW CorrectionsHealth Inmate Health Advisory Group and the NSW Department of Justice and Attorney Generals’ Women’s Advisory Council. In 2010, while teaching in Justice Studies at Charles Sturt University (CSU), she was the Chief Investigator for a Government-awarded tender to examine bail practices affecting children and young people.
From 2011 Kath was Chief of Staff to a NSW Minister, running the political office across various portfolios including Planning and Infrastructure, Juvenile Justice, Corrections, Attorney General, Family and Community Services and Social Housing.
She rejoined CSU as a Senior Lecturer in Justice Studies in 2016.
Expunging the criminal records of kids in care does not absolve the state's injustices against them
Jul 31, 2018 15:31 pm UTC| Insights & Views Law
In the Victorian parliament last week, legislation was introduced to address a serious historical injustice that saw thousands of vulnerable children in state care treated as criminals. The Victorian government will...
NSW bail laws mean well but are landing homeless kids in prison
Dec 17, 2016 06:00 am UTC| Law
Every year in New South Wales, scores of children are locked up because they dont have a safe place to live. About one-third of them are Indigenous; about half are in the care of the state. Some are fleeing domestic...
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