Book Description

For more than 40 years, Professor Peter Norden has worked in a variety of roles within the Australian criminal justice system. These include his years as Catholic Chaplain to the Victorian Prison system including Pentridge Prison (1985-1992) and as Convenor of the Victorian Criminal Justice Coalition (1992-2008). 'Seeking Justice' reflects on this rich and diverse journey, providing reflections on decades of front-line work and advocacy. As one of the six reviewers of the book, Melbourne Barrister, Julian McMahon AC QC, renowned death row defence Counsel for Australians awaiting execution in our Asian region notes: 'Peter Norden has drawn a remarkable portrait of an era: of jails, executions, police killings, prisoners lost in their cells, brutality, survival and hope'.'Seeking Justice' is an extensive volume of 450 pages, and covers such historic personalities as Bill O'Meally, the last man flogged by the State in Australia, and Ronald Ryan, the last man hanged by the State in Australia. Norden describes the crisis surrounding the infamous death of the Jika Jika Five in a protest fire within Pentridge in 1987, and details hitherto unreported from the Walsh Street murder trial following the execution killing of the two young Police Officers in Walsh Street, South Yarra in 1988. But Seeking Justice does much more: it points to an alternative model of restorative justice that could be implemented to secure a more secure and safer society in Australia in coming decades. Such a model would address the current international scandal of the mass incarceration of Indigenous Australians. It would set a new direction for the Australian criminal justice system founded on evidence, and not on a misguided model based on our past as a penal settlement. Peter Norden is well placed to call for our political leaders to explore new paths in pursuit of true justice and greater community safety in Australia today.