Justice and Police Museum

What a fantastic museum! If you're a fan of dark history, crime, gangsters, and Bushmen, this museum is IDEAL. Great anecdotes about some of Australias dark history, as well as a well documented history of forensic science. Great guided tour, albeit brief.
Paul Phelps - 3 months ago

Free museum with an incredible story about some underground history of Sydney 100+ years ago. Takes about 30-45 mins to explore. Can do this self-paced or there are tours 1130am or 230pm. Only open Sat and Sun. Was still in use until the 70’s with police families living upstairs. Recently watched the SBS doco ‘Death on a Staircase’ which inspired the visit here.
Evie - 3 months ago

The Justice and Police Museum is centrally located within 5 minutes of circular quay and downtown. The room by room format offers an insight into the history of crime in Sydney and Australia. This museum relies heavily on text to deliver information, however employs a signficant amount of artifacts and photographs to help make following the stories more interesting and tangible. Throughout the museum are a variety of rooms adressing different topics such as famous criminals, object collections, legal proceedings and the role of law enforcement in criminal cases. Additionally, given this buildings historical uses as a court, the exhibits are integrated in the rooms giving a visual aid in imagining what the CJS may have felt like. Something to note; despite offering activites for kids (such as fingerprint registration) some of the photographs may not be appropriate for younger ages (bodies, gore, etc). Free entry as well as free guided tours twice a day which could provide more in depth information about the singificance of the building as well as the history preserved in the exhibits. Overall, defintely worth stopping by for a little hour. ps. the ladies working at the reception this afternoon (15.01.25) were so sweet and gave me plenty of help with my exploration of sydney so shoutout to them!
David - a month ago

Fantastic FREE museum that gives insights in to criminals from the previous era as well as some knowledge of how the justice system operates even today with a full scale courtroom diorama reproduction. Lots of information to digest although not a big museum but easily 1-2 hours if you pay attention to all the stories which I did since they were fascinating.
Victor Wang - 6 months ago

Great place to pop in for an hour or so. Definitely worth catching the tour for a bit of context and understanding of the place. Great for history and true crime lovers.
Sarah Wright - a month ago