Dr Amanda Porter

Overview

Languages spoken: English (native), French (fluent), Dhurga (beginner)

Amanda Porter (BA LLB PhD) is from the Brinja clan of the Yuin nation. She is a police scientist, prison abolitionist and senior fellow (Indigenous programs) at Melbourne Law School’s Indigenous Law and Justice Hub.

Her research examines the violence of policing and genocide/ecocide, with a special interest in police powers and police accountability. Previous research examined community safety and defence initiatives (such as night patrols, custody notification services and ‘no jurisdiction’ cases) and appeared in Theoretical Criminology, Current Issues in Criminal Justice and elsewhere. Her recent and current research projects examine: the history of the police and police unions, the history of Aboriginal community safety/defence mechanisms, deaths in police custody, premature deaths, near misses, missing and murdered Indigenous women and children, strategic litigation and the politics of Indigenous refusal in the justice context.

Amanda teaches into Treaty, Criminal Law, Legal Research, Criminology, and co-ordinates the Indigenous Legal Advocacy Clinic, an experiential learning subject in partnership with the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency, Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal Corporation, the Yoo rrook Justice Commission and the National Native Title Council.