Weekly Events Calendar

Justice & Police Museum. Photograph Leo Rocker
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The courtroom, designed by colonial architect James Barnet in 1886, is where you can experience the pomp and the power of the law. Stand within the spiked metal dock where offenders faced the wrath of the magistrate. Or sit behind the magistrate’s bench and think about passing judgment on these people. Examine the ‘costumes‘ and ‘wigs’, hallowed by tradition and symbolic of legal authority, then sentence yourself to a visit to the Crime & Punishment Room where the history of imprisonment in NSW is memorably evoked. Inspect the artefacts of corporal and capital punishment, among them a leather lash, a hangman’s noose, an isolation mask, a mouth gag, and various manacles, cuffs and physical restraints – all of them instruments of past inhumanity or of justified cruelty depending on your perspective.

FEMME FATALE

The Postman Always Rings Twice, 1946, Lobby card [detail] National Film and Sound Archive
Explore the contrasts between this glamorous popular culture figure and the gritty reality of life in the criminal underworld.
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THE ARCHIVE GALLERY

�English May� Smith, Special Photograph number 396, 2 June 1921, Central Police Station, Sydney
Find out more about the Justice & Police museum's photographic space and its new exhibition Crooks.
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From the Loft blog

FORENSIC PHOTOGRAPHY BLOG

Discover 'From The Loft',
a blog by the curators of the
Justice & Police Museum.

Read the blog

Location: Cnr Albert and Phillip Streets, Circular Quay, Sydney, NSW 2000

Contact: 02 9252 1144

Admission:

  •  Adult $8 I
  •  Child/Concession $4 |
  •  Family $17 |
  •  Members free |

Hours: Weekdays for booked groups only, Weekends 10am – 5pm | Open daily in January and NSW School Holidays and public holidays | Closed Good Friday and Christmas Day

Transport:

Language guide:

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