When the Prosecutor Becomes the Performer: Carcerality as Entertainment at Adelaide Fringe

Stephen Pallaras is not a storyteller. He is not an artist. He is not a performer. He is a former Director of Public Prosecutions for South Australia, and he is now charging people money to watch him re-tell the prosecution of real criminal cases as entertainment. 

These are not abstract hypotheticals or fictionalised narratives. They are real cases involving real people, real families, real communities, and irreversible state violence. They are being repackaged as “engaging evenings,” marketed as exclusive behind-the-scenes access to the justice system, and sold as something to be enjoyed.

This is not art. It is carcerality rebranded as culture.

That this is being done by Stephen Pallaras, a frail old man trying to make a name for himself in his twilight years, now also a declared political candidate running under his own party, makes the situation more disturbing, not less. His so-called true crime events cannot be separated from political branding, public profile-building, and the conversion of prosecutorial authority into personal capital. When a former chief prosecutor takes the most coercive role of the state and turns it into a stage persona, something has gone badly wrong.

This is not about access. It is not about affordability. It is not about who gets to hear the story. It is about the fact that this exists as entertainment at all. Knowledge gained through public office is not being used to deepen accountability or expose systemic harm; it is being aestheticised, packaged, and sold as a night out. There is no version of this that becomes ethical if the room is bigger, cheaper, or more “inclusive.” The problem is not who is consuming it. The problem is that it is being consumed.

Turning prosecution into ‘entertainment’ is gross. Turning death into a ticketed experience is gross. Turning state violence into a personal brand is gross.

Pallaras insists he is not sensationalising tragedy, yet he sells tickets to shows titled Ultimate Betrayal and The Quiet Killer with the same logic and aesthetics as a Netflix thumbnail. If this were genuinely about education rather than spectacle, the entire structure would look different. You would not be touring real people’s deaths as a product. You would not be marketing “engaging evenings.” You would not be sprinkling promotional material with teaser lines about “what juries never see” or “why some cases stay with you forever.” You would not be naming sessions like a crime podcast season or a horror franchise. And you certainly would not be profiting off authority and access gained while acting as a public prosecutor.

Because that is exploitation and sensationalism. It is simply being dressed up as education so people can feel morally clean while they consume it.

The framing is slippery by design. Pallaras claims these events are “designed for people who want to understand crime, not consume it.” But if people are buying tickets and turning up for a night out, they are consuming it. That is literally the transaction. “Understanding” becomes the alibi. Education becomes the fig leaf. The underlying mechanism remains unchanged: voyeurism, suspense, and spectacle. 

For someone claiming to offer “understanding” of the justice system, Pallaras shows remarkably little tolerance for scrutiny. When the authors attempted to raise concerns publicly, our comments were erased and we were blocked. Critique was not answered; it was removed. Engagement was not welcomed; it was shut down. This is the familiar posture of an Orwellian state logic, where authority speaks, the public listens, and dissent is treated not as dialogue but as a threat to be managed. It is not the posture of public education. It is the posture of power protecting itself from challenge, and speaks volumes about how power is expected to operate, authoritatively, unchallenged, and without accountability. Transparency, it seems, only runs one way.

That same logic of control does not stop at silencing critique; it carries through into how these events are staged, marketed, and toured. The list of dates and venues reads like a band tour schedule because that is what it is. This is entertainment, even if the word “justice system” is repeated often enough to resemble a civic lecture.

The session titles themselves tell the truth. Ultimate Betrayal leans into soap-opera framing. The Quiet Killer borrows directly from horror branding. Sweet Old Lady relies on twist-bait and shock value. These are not neutral descriptions. They are marketing hooks designed to provoke curiosity and titillation, priming audiences to feel excitement about someone else’s worst day. If the goal were genuinely justice system literacy, the titles would be dull to the point of boredom, something like prosecutorial discretion and evidentiary thresholds, disclosure rules and pre-trial procedure, or jury directions and the limits of admissible evidence. But nobody is paying thirty-seven dollars for that, and that is precisely the point.

This is not simply a case of “true crime is cringe.” This is a former senior state prosecutor converting public authority, access to traumatic material, institutional credibility, and the prestige of insider knowledge into a personal brand, an income stream, and now a political launchpad. It should make people deeply uncomfortable because it represents the state eating twice: first it cages and punishes, then it sells the story back to the public as content.

Calling something “thought-provoking” does not make it ethical. A thing can provoke thought and still be exploitative. It can still retraumatise families and communities. It can still reduce victims to plot devices and flatten complex social harm into individual monster stories. And it absolutely feeds the cultural machinery that keeps punishment popular by reinforcing carceral fantasies about control, authority, and inevitability.

Adelaide Fringe: A Platforming Choice, Not an Accident

That this is being platformed by Adelaide Fringe is not incidental. Fringe is one of South Australia’s most visible cultural institutions. It confers legitimacy, reach, and credibility. Giving a festival platform to a former Director of Public Prosecutions to perform prosecution as entertainment is a choice, not a neutral act. It normalises the idea that the justice system is something to be admired rather than interrogated, consumed rather than resisted.

This is especially obscene in a state where criminalisation and imprisonment disproportionately target Aboriginal people, disabled people, poor people, and people living with complex trauma. A festival that claims to be inclusive and community-minded should not be handing the microphone to a former chief prosecutor to relive cases for ticket sales.

The insult sharpens further when these events are scheduled on International Women’s Day. A day meant to honour women’s resistance and survival is being used to host a spectacle that may centre the murder of a woman, possibly by another woman, stripped of context and structural analysis. For incarcerated women, for families of murdered women, and for communities living with gendered state violence every day, this is not education. It is a slap in the face.

None of this is accidental, and none of it is politically neutral. Pallaras makes his candidacy clear in these events. His prosecutorial past is being actively leveraged to build authority and visibility in the present. When a former chief prosecutor can leave office and monetise and politicise their role without serious public scrutiny, it corrodes trust in the justice system itself.

Shame belongs here. Shame on Adelaide Fringe for platforming carceral garbage and pretending it is just another act in the lineup. Shame on Kyam Maher for failing to intervene while senior prosecutorial power is repurposed for profit and politics. And yes, shame on anyone who buys a ticket and calls it education.

You do not need a prosecutor on stage to understand crime. You need to stop treating state violence like entertainment.

RAD Faction has contacted the Office of the Attorney-General on 6th January for comment on this alleged abuse of office, but we have yet to receive any response.