Rewi blogs at Oqurum and this post was originally posted there.
In an earlier post I briefly discussed the issue of civil rights in Australia, particularly as to how we justify infringing rights in order to deal with specific segments of society. It’s a distinctly worrying trend, but when the decision of the Western Australian government to grant police the power to stop and search citizens without reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing is cast in terms of ‘cleaning-up the streets’ to the benefit of ‘decent families’, as opposed to violent thugs, it’s pretty hard to say ‘Hang on a minute’ without being accused of being with the terrorists.
But… hang on a minute.
The trend in Western Australia, and Australia generally, should be alarming its citizens. This isn’t just about physical intervention by police forces, but an active campaign of intimidation designed to inculcate a compliant population.
And it appears to be working.
As of 2004 Perth was home to the largest single closed-circuit television surveillance system in Australia. CCTV isn’t about catching crooks; its advocates argue that it is meant to act as a deterrent to crime. Much could be written about the value of deterrents in criminology, but let’s skip that for now. In this instance, deterrence can only mean one thing: intimidation. CCTV exists to intimidate citizens into obeying the law. As does the newly increased use of sniffer dogs in police patrols through the city.
But which laws?
It’s all very well to say that many of the current laws are beneficial, serve to reduce violence and theft and so on. There are some laws, though, that really only serve to modulate society. Laws about littering or spitting, skateboarding or busking. Intimidatory surveillance is intended to promote fear of prosecution for all unlawful activity regardless of the social merits of the laws that may be broken, laws the passage of which is frequently the result of political maneuvering that may diminish or devalue the interests of minority communities of interest. When we introduce systems of intimidation they serve to enforce a societal rigidity, which arguably makes people more compliant and willing to accept subsequent, more interventionist laws.
Like stop and search powers, for example. The Western Australian government has introduced legislation which would enable police officers to stop and search any citizen without the need to rely on a reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. I guess it’s good that laws which increased the penalties for assaulting a public officer were passed before these new laws: readers can judge for themselves how likely it is that levels of violence against police will increase as a result of being physically searched for no apparent reason other than that an officer doesn’t like the cut of a person’s jib.
These powers are not, as some might suggest, the thin edge of the wedge. Western Australia’s legislators have hammered the thing in a good couple of centimetres already.
The problem remains, however, that the people that such laws are intended to be used against are actually bad people. I know there’s a whole bunch of romanticism in Australia associated with some criminal organizations, and I also know that drug laws in Australia are not sufficiently effectively enforced (if they ever could be) and so there are people (’entrepreneurs’?) who are essentially just taking advantage of those circumstances. But let’s not forget that there’s a very high degree of human misery involved in the trade in which these groups so violently peddle.
It makes a bit of a mockery of concern for civil rights that the most ardent advocates for their preservation have such obvious and unabashed links with these interests. And if the only other voices raised against this progression towards ever increased surveillance and intervention are lawyers whose income largely comes from defending crooks, it’s going to continue to be pretty hard for the trend to be slowed, let alone halted or reversed.
Who from the not-tainted-by-association could or would take a stand on these issues? Until our parliamentarians hear it from the socially pure, it is virtually inevitable that future legislation will become increasingly harsh. If the current advocates, let’s be generous and call them ‘rights campaigners’, really want to make an impact, they need to start broadening the base of supporters of and advocates for their cause.
Seems to me that Teh Evil Defence Lawyers only have money to lose from the end of prohibition.
Lawyers are educated in, and usually revere, our tradition of liberty within the law. We understand the practical implications for fairness of secret evidence, hand picked judges and other recent retrograde anti-justice steps. We think of “liberty” as a word with an actual meaning rather than just a noise you make on Anzac Day. We know from experience that you can’t trust the executive to be fair to individuals, where others seem to truly believe “nothing to hide, nothing to fear.”
Anyway, if we’re not allowed to pipe up, you make the case Rewi.
Good post. The last paragraph is particularly pertinent. What I find most disturbing is the level of public apathy towards this draconian authoritarianism, and the common characterisation of civil liberties as some sort of niche special interest. The Western Democracies don’t realise what they lost when Communism fell – an “Other” that highlighted what was good about our societies (civil liberties) and caused people to reflect upon it and seek to defend it. We no longer seem to notice.
Thanks Tim and Sean.
Sean, far be it for me to argue in a post about freedom that anyone should not be ‘allowed’ to speak out about these issues. I do suggest, though, that in the context of a public campaign criminal defence lawyers have a bit of a perceived conflict of interest regardless of the reality, which I don’t dispute, that more liberal laws likely means less work for lawyers.
Immediately prior to leaving Australia I worked as a criminal defence lawyer and will happily do so again on my return.
Lawl! Zot to me, “tainted by association” put a thistle in my knickers.
You know, there’s nothing quite as a) annoying and b) unproductive as someone lecturing people on how they should run their campaigns. If you feel strongly about it, campaign yourself.
I consider this posting to be a bit of a campaign in itself and wonderfully well articulated. We need more of this thoughtful reflection in order to help create a broader base of supporters, but how many people actually read this blog?
From the text of a bus window and the recent “Graffidiot” anti-vandalism campaign:
Call me old-fashioned but I preferred signs saying “NO VANDALISM: OFFENDERS WILL BE PROSECUTED” to this overbearing moralism.
A more diverse media ownership would help. New Ltd reliably takes an authoritarian line.
Bill Posters, nice try.
Oh yeah, bolded text is of course to emphasise that the campaign presupposes without consultation the support of “everyone” in the community for its terrorising and psyching-out of graffitos and vandals.
Thanks Elizabeth.
Bill, I appreciate your annoyance. How we each respond to unsolicited criticism/advice is a constant challenge.
Rewi: you singled out Perth (the city council, I assume) for the “largest single closed-circuit television surveillance system in Australia”. But the PDF you linked shows there’s something special about Queensland:
And I can’t pass up without mentioning Charles Stross’s short story The Concrete Jungle, which is available online. And you thought CCTV was about catching crime? Think again.
Yeah they’re all rugged self reliant individualists up in Qld, under the constant watchful eye of their government, their taxes paid by New South Welshman.
Down and Out, yes the decision to focus on Perth was deliberate, for two reasons. One is that I’m originally from WA, the other that there has recently been a swathe of law and order legislation before the Western Australian parliament.
Of course, this is a trend throughout Australia as the quote you’ve cited highlights.
Rewi – I think your post might give the wrong impression to readers.
The search powers will only be in designated areas at certain times: the Premier was quoted in the paper as saying “We will target known problem areas such as Northbridge after midnight … the people we are targeting are those who are carrying weapons or drugs and intending to create trouble …”
I don’t feel the slightest bit threatened by the laws – if they help police catch people carrying weapons that will be a good thing.
“CCTV exists to intimidate citizens into obeying the law” – I suppose police on the beat do the same thing. I guess there’s a trade-off, but I suspect that most people will support measures that might protect them from violence, rather than fret about possible breaches of rights.
Russell, thanks for that clarification.
The Premier’s statement in this instance is a nonsense. How can police possibly target someone for weapons or drugs if they don’t have any reasonable suspicion that that person is carrying them?
If they do have a reasonable suspicion, they already have sufficient power to take the appropriate action. Commissioner Callaghan has said such decisions will be “based on intelligence”, but apparently this intelligence isn’t sufficient under present laws. That’s why Premier Barnett in that same article decried the fact that ‘reasonable suspicion’ has meant that people are “getting off on a technicality”.
So what’s the suspicion they’re going to be using,then, an ‘unreasonable suspicion’?
There is, I concede, a genuine problem in campaigning on such issues in trying to convince the population at large that they should be worried about it. The old ‘if you’ve done nothing wrong, you’ve nothing to fear’ line is quite pervasive.
I’m not sure if you’re the kind of person likely to go to a big music festival, or to Scarborough or Northbridge. These powers are intended to be used, as you say, within specific localities, but in a quite arbitrary way. Similar laws in Victoria, for example, allow police to nominate an area and then stop and search everyone who enters that public space. If you’re willing to accept that kind of constraint on going about your lawful business, fine. Many of us are not.
“Commissioner Callaghan has said such decisions will be “based on intelligence”, but apparently this intelligence isn’t sufficient under present laws”
Rewi, I read that quote as meaning the police will use intelligence as to the areas and times they use the new powers. Under the present laws police can go to a troublespot at 2am but not search a group of ruffians hanging about there. With the new powers they could just search them. I’m unconcerned, though I agree with critics who say the places and times should be gazetted thereby giving Parliament the chance to disallow any particular attempt to apply the powers.
Thanks again Russell.
Actually, given the Premier’s statements, the issue appears more related to what happens in the courts than what happens on the streets. According to him, people are getting off charges on the basis that a court does not agree that the suspicion formed by police officers was reasonable, based on the circumstances as presented in the evidence.
This would seem to suggest that as far as the police are concerned there is enough reason to intercede, but that the courts disagree.
In essence, the government appears to be suggesting that the courts’ conception of what constitutes a ‘reasonable person’ is flawed, and that the only way to overcome this is to suspend the ‘reasonable person’ test altogether. That test, funnily enough, is based on reason.
A results based approach driven by the suspension of reason doesn’t seem to me a very healthy way for a liberal democracy to proceed.
My bet is that many of those who like to go against police powers are living in nice areas with low crime rates. I bet they are middle class. I work in a very low socio economic area and I see daily on the streets and at the railway station how thugs and aggresive loud mouths have set the tone for the area. The decent people have to look the other way, ignore it, pretend they did not hear or see because these fools know that they are largely untouchable. What they do is not serious enought to go to jail but serious enough to make life miserable for the local community. Before I worked in this area I had the same vies as many posters here. Once you have seen what hands off policing means you change your mind. I support the police cracking down on the thugs and fools that make working class and low socio economic areas so unpleasant. And guess what. Many of the working class there too have had enough of these fools too. I recommend that some of the middle class contributers to this discussion go and see first hand how their attitudes give power to the thugs to destroy working class communities.
“In essence, the government appears to be suggesting that the courts’ conception of what constitutes a ‘reasonable person’ is flawed, and that the only way to overcome this is to suspend the ‘reasonable person’ test altogether. That test, funnily enough, is based on reason.”
Rewi – isn’t it about ‘reasonable suspicion’ – not reasonable people? (I’m not being picky – I don’t know). I think at present the police would have to be able to present some facts as to why they suspected someone was about to commit a crime. But they might just want to search everyone in that street, at that time, in case anyone has any weapons.
If there’s arguing in court about whether police had enough facts to reasonably suspect someone of illegally carrying weapons, before they searched them, why not bring in this little change and avoid the arguing? Then we can just say “at that specified place and that time – a declared area – police can search who they like” because we’ve decided in advance that it’s reasonable for them to do so.
This sounds like the old “only bad people have anything to worry about” line. CCTV cameras make us safe from terrorist and deter criminals, random stop and search powers should only be a concern to people breaking the law, the rest should be overjoyed that the police are doing something to combat crime. I think its a complete crock. When the cops, politicians and judges stop getting busted for corruption and when the criminals who profit immensely from “legitimate” businesses become accountable then I might start to listen.
and the notion of a surveillance society extends way beyond simple CCTV…
Rewi I’m surprised that the courts are finding in favour of defendants in WA on the test sufficient for legislators to want to water it down. The bane of our lives in NSW is, (apart from its government in general) affray:
s.93C Affray
Two people inside a house having a domestic can trigger this one. (Luckily they haven’t yet eliminated self defence as a defence–probably they’re working on it.) And obviously (and legislatively)the person of reasonable firmness is a hypothetical one who just happened to be, hypothetically, in the house. This catch all crime to me is one of the worst aspects of reasonable person tests which assists police too lazy to do the work and prove common assault/assault occasioning. (What’s ironic is that the offence can be proved in practice amidst a crowd eager to get close to and witness the punchup–how is it that they must all be persons of unreasonable firmness?)
The point is, not that there is no justification for policing/tightening apprehension of suspects in hot spot areas, but how police can and will in time abuse the new legislation. For example will it apply to people driving through that area? If so, then they may as well call it
Random Bastard Testingrandom testing for criminality. And the trifecta that seems to invariably follow, refuse a “lawful” direction_resist/hinder police_offensive conduct/language.Classic precedent case for reasonable suspicion in NSW is the case of Rondo: police pulled up a car because the young man driving it, literally “looked too young to be the owner of such a flash machine.” Under WA’s new law, it would seem to me that once “reasonable suspicion” is disposed of a whole Pandora’s box is opened, including watering down reasonable person tests across all criminal law.
I guess what I’m saying is that “reasonable person” test sometimes sucks, eg affray, but to abolish it for searching people ie reasonable suspicion–is simply crazy, and demonstrates police inefficiency (and/or pollies Laura Norder auctions) to apply existing law.
Legislators will help enrich lawyers over this, by default. Hopefully some ghastly case comes before the HCA to scotch it, (as I predict will happen to the NSW anti bikie control order regime.)
Last word: It’s all about control.
I was amused tonight to of read of the arrest of the top cop in New York City for many offences. Kerik sounding like a stand-in for Soros International sought his gold criminally.Maybe W.A. devoid of any development in Policing accept noticing they are now sometimes getting a sort of pineapple tactile experience,have looked to dear old Pommy land and lust for sub-machine guns,when “Yoof” become uncontrollable.Why can’t Aussie Police be like a Wiltshire Officer unnamed who saw some Aliens near a Crop Circle and complain bitterly,that reality is so twisted now for everyone,including themselves,that an occasional crack at Throat Singing at said Yoof in a manner forthright and with common language,is the only sane commonality left amongst us.And apologise later,rather than shoot first and apologise later.Not that the Wiltshire Police Officer unnamed actually practiced his alphabetical associations with crude form in mind at said Aliens,who looked Nordic and tall,but ,I mean Paul Hogan lookalikes in a crop circle would make most people want to strangle the next crocodile they met.If only Aussie coppers would remain standardized and use their Tasers on doughnuts and ice-cream.
If CCTV prevents or deters crime, I wonder why London, the most surveilled city in the world, has such high rates of violent crime, and indeed how it was that suicide bombers on the Tube managed to blow themselves up, or police officers shoot an innocent man several times in the head, right in the view of CCTV.
Surveillance doesn’t prevent or deter wrongdoing. It just makes prosecution easier afterwards, and helps ensure the smarter criminals aren’t watched (as they work in blind spots).
I am also concerned about the death of the “reasonable person” test. If we no longer expect our police officers to behave as reasonable people, we are in trouble.
I am not concerned that people may be carrying weapons and drugs and not be spotted. So long as they only carry them, they are no threat; it’s only when the weapon or drug is brought out for use that it becomes a threat. And once it’s out, you don’t need to search the person to know they’re committing a crime.
In answer to Spana, I am working class, I have been a victim of a random street assault breaking my nose, I have suffered three attempted muggings in the last five years, I have lived next door to marijuana dealers, when I was a teenager I saw Lebanese gangs knifing people, and so on.
I still oppose laws like this. If my safety was so much more important than my liberty, I could ask to be locked up in a padded cell for the rest of my life.
Kiashu, I think further to your point, surveillance does affect the behaviour of mostly law-abiding people, while at the same time, you’re right that it probably does little to affect the behaviour of people who see themselves as largely outside of law-abiding society.
/foucault
I also think it’s entirely too simplistic to say that this is about out of touch middle classers. I don’t now, but I also grew up in a working class, fairly high crime area (for Perth, anyway). It’s the law-abiding people in these areas who will also bear the brunt of increased surveillance and police search powers. It’s always the powerless who suffer most from increased state power.
Russell,
What constitutes reasonableness is a relatively long and tortuous story, and changes over time. It is based on how the court conceives a reasonable person would behave or think given a certain set of circumstances. It is not necessarily how a reasonable police officer behaves or thinks that matters (although I’m sure that a reasonable police officer could hold a view that would be consistent with a court’s conception of a reasonable person).
So it is entirely possible that over time people who hold the view that police should be able to exercise these kinds of powers, like Spana and you, could sufficiently change community attitudes to the extent that a court would allow charges to stand. That is, what the court considers a reasonable basis for a fear or apprehension that particular types of unlawful activity might be taking place or about to take place could be affected by what it is convinced a reasonable person would believe, which, given that you seem fairly reasonable, could be you.
I guess the alternative to this is the view that the population has elected a legislature that is representative of community views, and which is empowered to dictate to the courts what constitutes ‘community standards’.
As Peter Kemp has highlighted, abandoning the reasonable person test for determining what constitutes a reasonable suspicion is not a ‘little change’. As I’ve said above, the notion that a law abiding person should be subjected to a search while going about their everyday life – an act that in any other circumstances would be considered an assault – is one that I find affronting.
You argue that such powers themselves might be reasonable because ‘we’ve decided in advance’ that it’s the case. Well, I’m not part of that ‘we’. So, is the consequence of my view that I should not go to such festivals or locations? Or is it permissible, because I’m not part of the ‘we’, for me to go and refuse to be searched?
I suspect that you might argue that I would be ‘free’ to make ‘choices’ about such decisions. This is the kind of warped notion of freedom that Australia has embraced, where my choices would be between subjecting myself to what is effectively a presumption of guilt (if you’ve done nothing wrong, you will be proven innocent after the search) or not enjoying the lawful fulfillment of my recreational and entertainment interests.
Spana, thanks very much for your comments which I suppose I preempted in the first paragraph of the original post.
Peter Kemp, quite so. I’ve heard the trifecta you mentioned referred to as the BLT. In WA, at least, the trifecta will now have more serious consequences if the ‘resist/hinder arrest’ aspect amounts to an assault because of the new penalties introduced recently.
I have been away from WA for a while, and so I’m not sure of the extent to which defendants have benefited from rulings concerning the test. It’s possible that this legislative trend is exactly that – a trend. As I wrote earlier, Victoria made similar moves in August.
Two words AWOL in this post: Labor Party.
Odd.
Police already have sufficient powers. However the courts are letting them down.
As is clarified in comment #18.
The W.A. Parliament had to pass extra laws to achieve what was already law, because the judicial system was letting down the public, and subverting the meaning of the law.
I am not in the slightest happy with the W.A. laws as described above (giving police the power to search without explaining themselves) But I can see why the W.A. Parliament did it.
Yeah, votes.
The biggest moral panic/violence problem in Perth at the moment is dickheads punching and kicking each other and accidentally killing them. How extra search powers helps that, I don’t know.
well don’t worry according to the WA today on Thursday the CCC is going to become WAs own little FBI or Gestapo,they will have a team of 100 odd at the start rising to 150 monitoring all Mobile,Fixed Line, Internet mail, websites and so it goes 24hrs a day.
Now dont that make you sleep soundly in your beds,our own special branch,none of which you will allowed to access,along with increased police powers which the Govt is handing over to the Cops,is WA becoming a Police state.
We all know how along with the Pope the WA Police never make mistakes,dont leak information to bad people,never fit people up, and are as honest as the day is long.
I agree with John Ryan.The naivety of people when it comes to the matter police powers will never cease to amaze me.Still it’s not as bad as the sixties, then the police could kick peoples doors down in the middle of the night looking for a parking ticket evader or a jay walker.Of course the legalities of those regular exercises were decided at police h.q.and not by the courts, who in most cases unless the evidence was crystal clear even to “Blind Freddie” that the action of the police was legal, was mostly just rubber stamped by the authority’s.
Yes we are again on the slippery slope to a “Police State” How soon we all forget the warnings of history.
John Ryan,
I did read that story, but perhaps some clarification is in order.
The number of staff you cite is, from recollection, correct. However it is not quite right to say they’ll be monitoring all fixed line etc phones. The new surveillance system was reported to allow them to monitor 1000 telephone calls, not 1000 phones. They will still be required to seek authorization for such monitoring.
Whoops, a little overuse of the emphasis there…
First point, Kiashu, to say you are not worried about people carrying weapons shows an incredible ignorance of how violent situations develop. Thugs with weapons (and often not much brain power) are a recipe for much more serious injury when assaults or fights occur. If you choose to enter our public space don’t come armed with things that may hurt or frighten. A man was stabbed at the train station near where I work earlier this year. If there had been no knife there may still have been a fight but weapons increase brutality and the liklihood of serious injury or death. I back police taking on these thugs any day over letting them ruin our suburbs and transpoert networks.
Second point,those talking of a police state have no idea. Try visiting East Timor in the 1990s where you were followed and anyone you spoke to questioned. Try being picked up by roving police, taken to police stations, having bags searched and photos looked at, torure, disappearance. Again, we see middle class lefties trying to equate a few stop and search powers (which will largely affect thugs and those wrecking the lives of people around them)with oppression like they have never seen. I am no right wing law and order tpe but the arguments put forward here simply make the thugs in tough areas harder to crack down on. I will back tougher stop and search powers targeted at anyone disrupting the safety and quality of life of the majority of decent people. I side with the honest working class, not the thugs who think they can wreck the areas where they live.
“The biggest moral panic/violence problem in Perth at the moment is dickheads punching and kicking each other and accidentally killing them”
I think it’s a bit broader than that. I think most people will support the police having these extra powers because of the fear that violence is spreading; that unless it is somehow checked, they will become a victim. So let’s start with the obvious – the violent people who regularly hang out in particular trouble spots at certain unsocial times.
Unfortunately there’s a limit to what the law can ever do – I was on the jury of a murder trial where the deed was done with a screwdriver the man happened to be carrying – he’d been working on a car earlier in the day, of course. Still, I’m happy for the police to have the power to at least harass people they suspect are likely to be involved in violence. This weekend Perth is hosting a jamboree of the Finks motorbike gang. The impudence! The police should stop them repeatedly and search all of them for, oh, about 3 hours.
Similarly, the argument that cctv is intimidating, will be met with the argument that it is the level of violent crime that intimidates many people from going about the city to do what they want to do. If the cameras help convict the criminals let’s have more of them.
Got any crime rate stats to back that up Russ?
On any given day you can find a reason why police can’t have these unfettered powers over the citizenry. Here’s today’s:
Golly gee whizzekers, I wonder how the torturers GUESSED it was time to go?!?!? And yes maybe I have seen bigger police investigations into $300 owed for horse feed, but …um…
A big problem is that there are many on the left who simply fail to recognise that society is curently in rapid social change and in some areas turmoil. Increasing numbers of people feel they have no social obligation to others and have little respect for public space. Of course I have an issue with police powers that allow police to secretly interrogate a person for a week with no contact of others. I oppose this. This is very different however from powers which allow police to stop and search suspects, move on loud and obnoxious people, get drunks off the street and shut down drunken parties etc. I have no time for groups of yobs who think thay can turn suburban streets and train stations into their own private place for abusing others and making the place unpleasant. I fully support forcible removal of anyone who disrupts public transport or swears at other people in public. Have you heard of reclaim the streets? I support reclaiming them for the decent people. I don’t care if that means a few yobs are harassed and moved on. Police do not use these powers for fun. They don’t just pick out people to harass. Like it or not, the vast vast majority of those stopped by police are causing trouble and are not your law abiding nice person. And they would care little for you either if you met them at night at the train station.
Spana oh the irony of your comments.
So those talking of a “Police State have no idea? Especially the middle class lefties,I mean what would they know? Of course the irony would be lost on you, that most of the police powers targeted apart from the obvious criminal activities of scum bags, were and are targeted at “Middle Class Lefties” yes those very types that fought the establishment in the last hundred years to establish, a lot of the rights you now take for granted.
Australia in the sixties was a very different place to what it is now, not withstanding the latest powers given to the police of Western Australia.Of course I would never compare to what was happening in East Timor to what has happened in Australia in my life time.But, what I can tell you is, Australian indigenous people would have a total different perception on your perception of what a “Police State” means..
Deaths in custody, the stolen generation, and the rounding up of Aboriginals who had the unmitigated gall to visit places, that they weren’t supposed to be.Yes the city of Adelaide, to be precise.
In South Australia in the late sixties and seventies the “Police Special Branch” even kept a file on the then Premier of the state Don Dunstan.The police even admitted at the time, that most of the files kept on law abiding citizens in South Australia were of, Yes, those “Middle Class Lefties”
Bashing gays, hippy types,and left wing academics by the police became sporting legend in some parts of Australia in my life time, to deny this borders on delusion.
So you go right ahead and give them all the powers they think they need,trouble is, when they can’t find the criminal types that need their special attention, they will as ever before turn their attention else where.
Of course that can’t happen,can it?
Sean – I don’t need crime rates since I carefully said “because of the fear that violence is spreading” rather than actually recorded crime!
That said, I think it’s true to say there has been a slow upward trend in the number of recorded assaults in both Perth city and in Fremantle, where I live. So in the daily paper, The West Australian, and in my local papers I get to see enough photos of the bashed. In last week’s paper there was a photo of a grandma bashed near the Gosnells railway station. She was on her way home from the State Library where I used to work, I saw her there often.
This is why people are frightened of going out. Perhaps in a kind of ‘broken windows’ way of thinking, people might think “OK, let’s get the obvious thugs first – they’re all in one spot, at one time, in Northbridge and Scarborough, so get them at least. Otherwise you have this sort of ongoing advertisement that violence is tolerated”.
You did not read my post Speed. I said I oppose the kinds of rights or violations you speak of and gave an example. I said I supported giving police rights to crack down on yobs in public places and on public transport. I never said anything about police having rights to bash activists did I? No matter what powers you give police a bad police officer will still do bad stuff. Just as criminals don’t respect the law neither do corrupt police. Keeping files on political protest is very different from allowing police to remove and arrest yobs, search thugs and move people on. If you can’t see the difference then I won’t waste my time explaining. Don’t lump all powers together. It adds nothing to the argument. Give the police the powers they need to crack down on yobs and then crack down hard on corrupt police.
Au contra ire Spana I read your post, nothing new, so spare me your condescending diatribe.
It is you that has missed the point,giving police more power is not the answer, education and other social programmes are.This includes better training of police,and for governments of all stripes stopping using them as tax collectors.
That you cannot see a connection between police powers and their M.O. in their daily activity in prosecuting criminals, and what has transpired in Australia’s history of law enforcement is palpable.It starts with arresting street thugs, and can escalate into the persecution and surveillance of law abiding citizens.
Giving police extra powers will achieve nothing, except a lot more angry street scum, who will meet their vengeance and mayhem out on us.
Yes, and please don’t waste your time explaining the subtle differences I must have missed from your educated comments, leave that to others.
What’s funny about the WA police is that after the cop got vegetablised they passed these new “anti-assault” laws, completely ignoring the fact that the “criminal” in this case actually wasn’t guilty of assault, after successfully defending himself on the grounds of self-defense, in other words the police started it.
These new laws along with move-on laws and the behavior of the WA police in general (KKK hoods, forcing american students to apologise for Bush while restrained in handcuffs, etc etc) show what a bunch of vermin really run this state.
Speed, I am guessing you don’t live in a rough area. I am guessing you have not seen the aggresion in underclass areas full of welfare dependency where the majority of decent people have to go about their business while watching their backs because a minority of brutes run the streets. Perhaps the voices of decent people who are also poor but do not turn to violence and aggression should be the one’s who are listened to. Because if you ask the decent old couple at the train station or the young man walking to work in a rough area (rather than living on welfare) then I think they might let you know they have no issue with police cleaning up the streets and getting rid of the gangs of foul mouthed intimidators who turn train stations and shops into no go zones at night.
As for education and other social programs, well this is the area I in which I work. And I see daily that many of these thugs wil not respond to a softly softly approach or a counselling session or a bit more education. Sometimes humans need to know there will be swift and severe consequences for behaviour which disrupts the well being of the community. By all means try to educate thes yobs but at the same time let them know that if they hurt the community there will be zero tolerance.
This thread and comments (esp spana) sent me off checking articles and stats again… including the huge debate around declining crime rates in NY, from the mayors (Guiliani) report (it’s all about zero tolerance policing) to the Freakonomics version of life (it’s the availability of abortion 20+ years ago, reducing the pool of unwanted/disaffected adolescent and young adult men)
I remember hearing a discussion recently about factors affecting crime rates, and it turned out that transience, or change in community, was found to have the highest correlation above some of the usual suspects (poverty, education levels etc), ie. in communities where people knew each other more and there was less churn in population, there was less crime. It seems social trust, or lack thereof, was significant. The suggestion at the time was that the churn generated by real estate ‘booms’ and other things that disturb the social cohesion of communities could contribute to higher crime rates, in both poorer and higher income areas (they were trying to study the reasons for crime rates in different communities).
Couldn’t find a reference for that from my memory or google, but did find a bunch of other interesting articles and stats at ABS.
Do the more cops, more power for cops really have any evidence that their theory works? Is there evidence that allowing the police to arbitrarily stop and assume guilt, until proven otherwise, amongst the general public will increase levels of social trust? Wouldn’t that mean that all the imprisonment of indigenous Australians should’ve increased levels of trust between them and us should be higher than ever then?
For anyone who bothers to actually go out and check some numbers and consider the history of human societies. I doubt they could honestly suggest that.
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Through philosophyblog.com.au from an organisation called beyondbars and the ABS.
“There isn’t a straightforward relation between increasing police and decreasing crime (references: 1, 2).
– Victoria has the lowest crime rate, the lowest imprisonment rate (94.2 per 100,000 adults), the smallest number of police, and the lowest policing cost per capita. (NSW, incidentally, imprisons 187.6 per 100,000 adults.)
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– The Northern Territory has the highest number of police, the highest policing cost per capita (more than double Victoria), the highest rate of crime, and the highest rate of imprisonment (575.5 per 100,000 adults).”
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Victoria, isn’t that such an unsafe place that the police recently received order that for their own safety to not patrol the CBD at night in less than groups of Three?
Spana, you assume much don’t you? I really didn’t want to say this on this thread because I can’t prove it, and I am certainly not going to put my discharge book on this blog.We will each just have to take what is said at our word.
I am an x law enforcement officer.Yes I know, with my latte trendy lefty socialist position you may find that hard to believe, but anyhoo.I grew up in the east end of London, where, the scum bags there, make the scum bags in the area concerned of which brought about the latest round of legislation in Western Australia, look like social workers.Perth and especially the area of Northbridge which is the concern of the, mostly media beat up, is as safe as any other place in Australia of equivalent size.
You have already by your own logic explained why we have the problem(welfare dependency etc)giving police extra powers only alienates the people that should be being helped, and not persecuted and harassed.
It is an unfortunate reality that the police among their ranks have the same percentage of people as any other industry who are in positions that they are clearly not suited to, and are never ever going to be qualified for.At the risk of being flippant, some of the ones I met should not have been given a water pistol much less other implements of deadly force.Hence the problem of giving them extra powers.
What do you do about that salient fact?I don’t know,because if I did I wouldn’t have a problem with anything they want.
Of course using your logic, and by the same principle which remains the same, coming down hard on jihadists, in area clike Iraq and Afghanistan whilst innocent people are getting caught up in the mayhem and murder is really working isn’t it?
Spana, I already described that I am quite familiar with how violent situations develop. I am also quite familiar with police, having dated one in Sydney, and knowing police officers in Victoria, too. And I am honestly more concerned about police abuse of powers than a few thugs.
I emphasise again that I say this as a person who has been subject to violent assault in the street, and foiled muggings, and seen gang violence. But I have also seen police racism, corruption and drug use.
For example, I have seen a police officer accuse a Vietnamese city councillor of being a “member of the Triads”, seen another take speed before his shift where he was issued a firearm, and know that the police in Sydney have a policy of harassing petty criminals and drug users so that they move to the next police district – so they can improve crime stats in their district.
These are not the majority of police officers. However, their numbers are significant enough that giving them extra powers seems problematic to say the least.
I also noted that I am not “middle-classed”. But you seem more keen to speak than to listen, so I am not surprised you missed that.
Presumption of innocence. Reasonable suspicion required. Freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. No detention without charge or trial before a jury of our peers. These are all good principles for a civilised society, principles which have served us well since 1209.
Spana, with police reluctant to ‘grass’ on fellow officers if at all, the proverbial question arises: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes
ie Who will guard the guards taking advantage of bad laws? Power corrupts…
Gee, 48 posts and no-one’s mentioned the obvious. In WA the “young thugs” differ in skin complexion from the old fogies supporting this.
Of course, if you are young and of said different skin complexion to the coppers you can now expect to be regularly and none-too-politely searched, and occasionally fitted up or bashed, whether you are a thug or not.
there are many on the left who simply fail to recognise that society is curently in rapid social change and in some areas turmoil.
I’m sorry, but that is a complete pile of dingo’s kidneys. Social change is the bread and butter of leftist discussion (as it is on the right too, but more like OMG NOOOOO!!)
CL back at 27:
Sometimes you just gotta be cynical, eh. They didn’t even pretend to fight it.
It’s garbage like this that makes me think WA Labor has even further to fall, starting with their next by-election down in Willagee.
Meanwhile, Colin Barnett’s big story in today’s Sunday Times was on how they’re doing up the cultural centre (the bleak brick walkway between the railway station and the James St nightclub strip); the Times didn’t make so much of an issue on the new police powers and nightclub licensing restrictions, even though five (!) cabinet ministers in the centre of town for a Sat 10pm press conference were talking about little else. Quotable quote from Barnett: “any loss of civil liberties is a small price to pay”. Somewhere there’s a real liberal rolling in their grave.
I live in London. I have to say, since i came here I have realised cctv cameras are good. They protect people like me from the thugs and scum who drift the streets looking to rob me. On at least one occasion, I’ve saved myself from a fight by pointing out that my potential attacker was going to be filmed; on another occasion I’ve realised after the fact that a camera was my main means of ensuring a potential attacker would get what he deserved should he try anything; and I have spoken to women here for whom CCTV forms an important part of their personal safety procedures.
It’s all well and good claiming these things are an intrusion into your civil liberties. Try living in a a place where you’re just a random mishap away from a large underclass of criminal scum, and you start to view them differently.
derrida derider at 49, recent incidents of police murder in the UK – both, in fact – would have gone unnoticed but for the cctv footage which showed them to be different to the police account.
CCTV serves the same role as dna evidence, protecting the innocent from injustice more than it allows the police to exert their power.
“It’s all well and good
claimingobserving these things are an intrusion into your civil liberties.”There’s surely no debate about this.
Otherwise you make some decent points though.
CL @27 (and by extension Bird of Paradox @51), indeed, no political parties are named in the post.
I just read this now, derrida derider@49- what you said was one of the first things I thought of when I read the post.
Once, while waling down glenferrie rd, I crossed a side street where someone was waiting for a break in traffic. As I came to the side streett the driver looked up at me, looked alarmed and locked their door…
Which I found surprising cos I’m not actually the sort of thug that goes around beating people up.
“Keeping files on political protest is very different from allowing police to remove and arrest yobs, search thugs and move people on. If you can’t see the difference then I won’t waste my time explaining.”
Gotta protect the middle class from the yobs don’t we. Maybe sterilising bogans at birth would make you feel safer spana.
“ie. in communities where people knew each other more and there was less churn in population, there was less crime. It seems social trust, or lack thereof, was significant.” – good point Quoll.
Is this what we can see more with more police powers and discretion given to them?
The logic of the police council arguing that spraying someone (again) threatening self-harm with capsicum spray was their ‘duty’ you’d think at first glance is astounding, and perhaps after some consideration the same.
Officer used capsicum spray on naked prisoner
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/10/26/2724517.htm?section=justin
Posted 3 hours 0 minutes ago
A Canberra jury has been told a police officer who was in charge of the city watch house in 2006 was not justified in using capsicum spray on a naked female prisoner.
Former Sergeant David Fearnside is on trial for allegedly misusing capsicum foam on the woman, who had been arrested after biting and kicking another police officer.
She had already been sprayed once when she arrived at the watch house.
Prosecutors told the jury she complained of experiencing a burning sensation and was naked when she was put in a padded cell.
They say she yelled out to try to get an officer’s attention but a short time later was sprayed in the face by the accused.
Fearnside’s counsel told the jury the woman had threatened self-harm that night and it was the officer’s duty to spray her.
Plus a special tonight on the danger of being killed by police if you suffer from a mental illness and their lack of education, and probably resources, other than the use of guns or now tazers, both to lethal effect.
Something like 1 in 3-5 Australians could suffer from at least a period of mental illness in their life.
Police unprepared to deal with mentally ill
By Quentin McDermott for Four Corners
Four Corners | abc.net.au/4corners
Posted Mon Oct 26, 2009 7:25am AEDT
Under scrutiny: police training and the use of weapons
* Video: Four Corners: ‘Lethal Force’ (ABC News)
* Related Story: Charged officer not suspended from duty
* Related Story: Coroner says cop breached procedure in shooting
* Related Story: Taser victim died of heart attack: report
* Related Link: Four Corners
Police forces around Australia are failing to equip officers with the skills to deal with mentally ill people putting both the mentally ill and police at risk, an investigation by the ABC’s Four Corners has found.
how is it an intrusion into my civil liberties, fdb? i’m in public and the police can see me. how the film is treated may conatitute such an intrusion – if it’s catalogued and filed with an opinion and my name – but otherwise it’s just another eye. And one that has proven just as useful in protecting me from police brutality as enabling it.
I’m yet to hear much evidence that cctv has enabled police to improve their repressive ability. But I’ve seen a lot of evidence of its role in preventing or uncovering police brutality.
“I know there’s a whole bunch of romanticism in Australia associated with some criminal organizations, and I also know that drug laws in Australia are not sufficiently effectively enforced (if they ever could be) and so there are people (’entrepreneurs’?) who are essentially just taking advantage of those circumstances. But let’s not forget that there’s a very high degree of human misery involved in the trade in which these groups so violently peddle.” – Rewi’s OP
Whoa…
The only reason criminals are invovled in the drug trade is its illegality. Remove that and you remove the artificial inflation on the price and the motivation to be involved with the drug trade. Funnily enough removing the criminal stigma from addicted drug users would probably make it easier for them to deal with the problems their drug use causes them.
Recreational drug use, well its criminalised on puritanical grounds, ultimately it stems from that fear conservatives have. They’re scared they’ll get the blame if God hears someone having a good time.
“This isn’t just about physical intervention by police forces, but an active campaign of intimidation designed to inculcate a compliant population.” – Isn’t this by definition what happens during wars on “drugs” and other things.
Ultimately once you start trying to control someone else’s state of mind you are already in a certain mindset yourself, and as policies and the technologies evolve to enable said control then they will fall into place to facilitate the goals of that mindset. I think its a fundamental flaw with the institution of “the state” itself. Its strives for control and as a wise cripple once noted, is at its healthiest when its at war with … well anything really. Doesn’t matter what, so long as its at war.
A (different) clever nutcase once called the state a liar. IT claims to be us, the people, but it isn’t. Its the apparatus we set up to exercise power on our behalf. Cos we the people are a dynamic, unstable, chaotic, seething mass of humanity – not a rational, regulated structure. The state is just a gigantic demiurge looking for ripe minds to feed off. Build structure, regulate chaos, generate power, in order to build bigger structure, regulate more chaos to generate more power… It just goes on and on like the Blind Idiot God its trying to be.
Unfortnately most people believe its lie. They think the state is them, and when it speaks it speaks for them so they defer to it. Making this:
“they need to start broadening the base of supporters of and advocates for their cause.”
…difficult.
Especially now, cos it seems to me that one of the biggest legacies of the Howard years is the trend for all Australians to identify with “the State” itself instead of the people here.
Gee, people are missing the point here. It’s not about what happens in London – it’s about the peculiarities of WA. The q
“it’s about the peculiarities of WA.” ?!
No, DD, it’s a storm in a teacup.
The ALP needs a bit of policy differentiation here – maybe Ripper should propose a midnight curfew for Perth, as the next step forward.
It’s not a storm in a teacup at all.
Police in WA have the power to enforce anyone they don’t like to leave the CBD or anywhere else for that matter, with no grounds for appeal. They could basically confine you to your own home if they wanted to, without having to charge you with any crime.
derrida derider, jules, I think that it’s fair to say that the WA Police Service has made some attempts to introduce cultural awareness training in an effort to reduce prejudice amongst its serving staff. However, I think it’s also fair to say that this has not entirely succeeded. It is the unfortunate truth that many of the criminal laws in Western Australia and elsewhere have a disproportionate impact on Aboriginal Western Australians, and that this is at least in part because of how those laws are enforced.
Thanks as well, jules, for highlighting that quote from Quoll. It draws our attention to how we respond to root causes of offending as well as to the offending itself, as does your later contribution at 59. You may be interested to know, if you don’t already, that as part of its suite of law and order initiatives, the WA government is also winding back the reform laws introduced a few years ago which sought to better regulate cannabis use while maintaining criminal sanctions for large scale producers.
Russell, you’re just stirring the pot now, right?
I think the problem could be simply solved by surgically castrating all WA males between 15 and 55.
Live on TV.
Whew! – luckily, I escape the cut. I’ve given up TV and that’s not the sort of viewing that would entice me back.
Rewi – well, Mark doesn’t have a ‘storm in a teacup’ tag so I had to get it in the comments somewhere. For me the cannabis laws change is worse – hardly evidenced based. Really, I think most people are more concerned with violence than 2g of cannabis.
But I do think the searching people in declared areas at certain times law is a storm in a teacup, precisely because of the relative importance of other things such as the ‘disproportionate impact on Aboriginal Western Australians’ of our criminal justice system.
Russell, the point is that these laws will also disproportionately affect Aboriginal Western Australians. The two issues cannot be decoupled. If we accept that at least some police officers may at some times act in a way affected by prejudicial attitudes towards Aboriginal people, doesn’t the removal of being required to show a reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing mean that it is easier to act on those prejudices?
Now, you say that the particular issue of stop and search powers is a storm in a teacup. Yet this is merely part of the accretion of powers of police across Australia, of which the cannabis laws reform which you think is ‘worse’ is also a part. Are we to assume that you are similarly untroubled about the totality of new investigative and enforcement powers introduced over the past few years? And, though your dig about a midnight curfew is, I suspect (and hope), tongue in cheek, how far would you and others who support these powers be prepared to see the freedoms of movement and association curtailed?
“….the WA government is also winding back the reform laws introduced a few years ago which sought to better regulate cannabis use while maintaining criminal sanctions for large scale producers.”
That decision just seems so stupid.
W.A. has a need for another 1000 beds to make up for the backlog it already has.
And the staggering figure is, that of it’s jail population, 41% are indigenous.
I’m not sure how much of that crime is drug related but I would imagine it to be the majority. And according to the figures I read, it costs a third of the amount, a day, to provide drug rehabilitation over jail.
It really is a kind of apartheid and you just wonder if it doubles as a means of channeling large funds to international prison companies.
“the point is that these laws will also disproportionately affect Aboriginal Western Australians.”
If that were true I’d be concerned, but I haven’t heard that it would, because the law isn’t about a general “suspicion of wrongdoing” but about carrying weapons in some very specific declared places and times.
I actually don’t mean to defend these changes, because I don’t think they’ll make any difference to anything. I hope that the police were able to show the minister that these laws would have a benefit because of the experience somewhere else where this had been done. But I doubt it. We’ll see – the law will have to be reviewed after 5 years.
None of the changes in the laws over the past few years have affected anyone I know, and I can’t imagine that they would, so I’m not that concerned. On the other hand, have they had any good effect? Doubt it. It’s the wrong way to go, but neither the ALP or the Libs have the slightest interest in making serious efforts at preventing kids from developing anti-social habits. That kind of leaves you with anger and impatience at the thugs, and a willingness to let the police do what they want.
Now we’re getting somewhere.
I’m not sure I understand how you can accept the general proposition that many criminal laws in Western Australia disproportionately affect Aboriginal Western Australians, and yet at the same time express confidence that these laws will not do so. Surely it follows as a fairly logical consequence?
If, as you seem to accept, this is bad law – at least if only because it is ineffective – then surely it is more appropriate as a citizen for you to demand, as is your right, that more be done to overcome the causes of anti-social behaviour?
You may not “mean to defend these changes”, but it is in effect what you have been doing.
Well, I’m not enthusiastic about them, just saying that, in the grand scheme of things, I don’t see them as important. And, given that the lack of sense in our political parties means that we will have more and more thugs, I don’t mind police having more powers to ‘deal’ with thugs.
This could be my ignorance of Northbridge after midnight, but I assumed most of the violence there didn’t involve Indigenous people. A few years ago the police wanted to have an Asian gang squad – I thought it was probably those people they wanted to target.
As for my demanding this or that as a citizen …. how much difference will it make, and how much energy do I have to press these demands? Not enough.
And yet… here you are engaged in a discussion and making your arguments (though do I sense a waning enthusiasm for the fray?).
I appreciate this, it is one of the great dilemmas of democracy that citizens feel so disempowered as individuals that they are disinclined to either pursue individual action or to engage in collective action. When skepticism about such collective action leads to mass inactivity, the very basis of mass political party approaches to representation appears to be denuded. It is for this reason, amongst others, that many people now question the representativeness of mass parties.
I, for one, maintain some hope for this system of representation, but accountability rests with an interested and active citizenry. Australia desperately needs more active citizens who know enough to consider resolving root causes more important than punitive reactions to symptoms, and I’d encourage you and anyone else with such a view to find appropriate ways to let our representatives know your views.
There’s a lot going on here.
Specifically wrt these laws, how many people carried a weapon as a teenager?
I did, and I actually grew up in a well probably a fairly rough part of melbourne, a couple actually, but not as bad as other parts may be (I dunno). I did see some brutal fights between gangs of skinheads and gangs of (I assume) vietnamese kids, like in Romper Stomper, brutal, ugly and it never seemed to make the news. I stopped carrying it by the time I was 15, well before that probably, when I realised how dumb I was. It also helped that by then I could handle myself, and felt safe walking the street. I always carried a pocket knife tho, and still do often. It certainly was never a weapon.
As I have got older I have found out that many people I know carried a knife for a short while, usually before they were 15, and usually in response to a percieved but non existant threat. None of them ever said they pulled their weapons, and most admitted they would probably be too scared to use it if push came to crunch. Probably a good thing too, cos if they were anything like me they wouldn’t have known how to use it, and it would probably have been used on them.
Its only anecdotes, but its enough people to make me wonder … does anyone know if there is any research into knife carrying by young people, but in the context I mentioned above. For protection, but really without the intent or ability to use it. If my anecdotes are indictaing a pattern then this could bring more people into contact with the criminal justice system who would otherwise not come into contact with it. People who may have carried weapons but probably wouldn’t have been reasonably suspected of posing a threat to actually use them.
It certainly won’t have a measurable effect on lowering the rate of weapon carrying by people with an intent to use them IMO.
Coalition govt in WA, probably wondering what the fuck they are doing there and what their agenda actually is, falls back on tired old cliche “tough on crime”.
In the process it may expose more people to the CJS than it would have otherwise, people who probably don’t need to be exposed to it cos in reality they have no intention of being a serious criminal. Same with the latest cannabis law reform, which is regressive and pointless imo.
It also brings up some issues to do with ordinary human fallibility. Cops are people too, and as such, they do the things people do, like be lazy, cut corners and save themselves the hassle… we all do this, not necessarily as a matter of policy, but usually when tired, under the weather, stressed by work/home etc etc.
This policy may be seen as making it “easier for them to do their job” but that isn’t necessarily a good thing. It may make it harder for them to do their job effectively.
Relying on reasonable suspicion means targeting people who you have identified to pose a risk to the public safety. That means identifying them first, primarily building a case (for yourself then if necessary the court) that they are no longer to be presumed innocent. There’s already enough room for peoples bigotries to interfere with this process, but at least at the moment (pre these changes anyway) its in a context of identifying potential threats to public safety.
removing reasonable suspicion means removing the presumption of innocence (as has been noted by others already,) and thats a pretty significant change, cos it means a change in the target population from people who are potential threats (ie targeting people based on their behaviour and evidence) to everyone. Its a change in thinking and it could prove to be significant.
I am sure a similar change in thinking happens in oppressive regimes when the police go from targeting individuals (and groups) to protect the population, to targeting the population to protect the regime/state. Its one of the reasons the presumption of innocence is so important to a healthy democracy (imo).
And to top it off, if there are people who carry weapons without the intent or ability to use them (dumb I know) then they will be mnore likely to be found in the process of searching people if there is no requirement for reasonable suspician.
no doubt this will reinforce the idea that people should be considered guilty without reasonable suspicon cos they obviously are. At least in the minds of the people doing the enforcement. It kind of undermines the legitimacy of the presumption of innocence.
But the presumption of innocence isn’t actually about guilt or innocence in itself. Its about limiting the power of the state and about not framing the general population as a threat to power.
“let our representatives know your views” – I certainly do, often, but they’re interested in your vote Rewi, they couldn’t care less about your views. It’s a good reason to vote for the Greens – only when the major parties lose seats will they pay attention.
“removing reasonable suspicion means removing the presumption of innocence (as has been noted by others already,) and thats a pretty significant change, cos it means a change in the target population from people who are potential threats (ie targeting people based on their behaviour and evidence) to everyone.”
but Jules, it’s not everyone, it’s people in a certain place at a certain time: a troublespot. If there’s a fight every Saturday night outside a certain nightclub at 2-3am isn’t it reasonable to suspect that the people congregating there are likely troublemakers?
BTW Rewi, I can’t recommend the phrase “storm in a teacup” highly enough. It’s my new favourite mantra. Try as one might to avoid reading or hearing ‘the news’ a certain amount is unavoidable, but, no need to feel depressed, you just say to yourself “Storm in a teacup, really” and you feel immediately carefree and able to go on with life.
“If there’s a fight every Saturday night outside a certain nightclub at 2-3am isn’t it reasonable to suspect that the people congregating there are likely troublemakers?”
Its reasonable to assume some are, but not necessarily all of them. Not everyone that goes to nightclubs is a trouble maker, if they were there would be real actual bloodshed on the streets regularly, there would be a nightly death toll at nightclubs. Most people don’t want trouble – some people do, and go out looking for it. they usually behave in a certain way. Therefore its reasonable to assume the police would observe who was doing what and make judgements on the most effective people to harass. Not pick people at random in the hope they get the right person through luck or hunchs or the hand of God or whatever.
Jules,
You said, “… its reasonable to assume the police would observe who was doing what and make judgements on the most effective people to harass. Not pick people at random in the hope they get the right person through luck or hunchs or the hand of God or whatever. … ”
*
I spent 22 years as a police officer in NSW and I have been following this thread over the past few days. The problem with police observing who is doing what and making judgements on the most effective people to “harass”, (your word), is that as soon as you identify a certain type of person, whether it’s “young men of Middle Eastern appearance”, “anglo-celtic males with mullets and attitude”, “young aboriginals”, “Pacific Islanders”, or any class of person, someone from that group will jump up and and complain about Discrimination, and the Police Force hierarchy along with the politicians, will have to deal with controversy about the D-word, so from a politician’s point of view, it’s more palatable to spread the misery around for everyone, so no-one can complain about that nasty, old D-word any more.
*
Also, your comment about “hunches” had me scratching my head. What do you think a cop would be doing if he [observed] “who was doing what and make judgements on the most effective people to harass”?
*
Personally, I am against the random searches because I agree they are an infringement of liberty, and as others have already pointed out, the presumption of innocence is removed, but then again, what have you to say about Random Breath Testing?
*
My problem with this type of knee-jerk law, or policy revision, is that is is unnecessary, and a waste of everyone’s time, because it will achieve nothing, (except perhaps fuel the sense of grievance that some people have against the police) and unless the courts deal properly with offenders who actually USE knives on others, there will be no real improvement in the quality of life of the average person. However, from the point of view of the politicians, (of both sides, I would add), they can look as though they are being tough on crime, but they can quarantine themselves from claims that anyone is being discriminated against.
That nasty old D-word again- I get sick of hearing it.
*
I can’t speak for the situation in WA, but here in NSW, police have quite adequate powers as it is, but the politicians want to make it compulsory to gaol anyone caught with a knife in a public place. I would rather see the courts gaoling anyone convicted of Malicious Wounding, but they won’t come down hard on people who use knives, and other implements, to injure other people, yet they expect us to feel things will be better if people are gaoled for merely possessing a knife.
*
As far as the situation goes in WA, there are people in society who think that if having laws is a good thing, then having more laws is a better thing. With that mindset in government, (and it’s certainly not just the Coalition- NSW has had a parade of ineptitude masquerading as a Labor government for thirteen years, and things are just getting worse), it’s no wonder that our freedom has been steadily eroded over the last 25 years.
*
One other thing: Senior Police,(not the average cop on the street), LOVE this type of thing, i.e. random knife searches, because it gives them good statistics, that show police activity, but don’t necessarily show increased crime in their commands.
I’m interested in Jules’ comment. You appear to be a few years younger than me (40), Jules? In the blue collar/lower middle class millieu of me youth, people with weapons were considered either psychos or “dogs”. There were 2 meanings to that latter phrase then. The crims used it as they do now, but other blokes used it to describe, essentially, a man without honour.
And there’s no doubt it was a more “macho” time. You weren’t allowed to stand up for yourself if someone else started trouble, you were expected to. And yet, the only glassing I ever heard of was perpetrated by Julian Knight. Now the products of the violence-is-always-wrong generations seem to carve each other up with gay abandon.
‘Tis passing strange.
BTW Jules I didn’t mean to imply you were a psycho or a dog! I’m aware that I was in about the last cohort of the fists-only culture.
“Senior Police … LOVE this type of thing, i.e. random knife searches, because it gives them good statistics, that show police activity, but don’t necessarily show increased crime in their commands”
Brilliant! Thanks for that Phillip – I was wondering why police would ask for this power, since it isn’t likely to be wonderfully effective.
Getting back to the beginning, where is this massive CCTV network in WA? It certainly doesn’t cover many streets or public places. Is Rewi referring to the railway network and perhaps on buses? If so what is the problem? This is a public facility and if it has had any effect in making the public feel safer using it – or working in it – good. If only they could ban hoodies!
In my experience public transport and waiting for it has become more pleasant and less threatening over recent years – though perhaps as much to do with the increase in uniformed layabouts as anything else – in the media panic sense reporting on crime seems to have moved from the platforms – to near the stations.
– no I don’t have any stats – just an impression that that one gets.
Civil rights arguments so quickly race to the extreme – police have more powers – we’ll soon have a police state!
In reality it happens more slowly – police excess will be reported and public opinion, debate and the democratic process respond – its not perfect, but it keeps us talking to each other.
More likely they are just ordinary drunk young people who want to go home, but can’t because of the lack of transport options. A big proportion of Northbridge and Fremantle fights happen in the taxi rank.
Additionally it’s simply not a good idea to throw a large number of drunk people out on the street at a certain time with nothing to do, and expect them to sit quietly for a few hours. The closing hours themselves are a large problem.
This sort of thing simply doesn’t happen in places with unregulated opening hours because you don’t see large numbers of people ejected together at closing time. They filter out in their own time.
Why is everyone so keen to prove themselves not middle-class? What exactly is so wrong about not being working-class (if such a thing really exists in Aus anymore)?
Sean I’d like to point out that I stopped carrying a knife, well probaby when I was still 13. Once your balls hit the ground and the testosterone kicks in, all that fear about getting hurt goes out the window. I wasn’t just referring to guys tho.
Mostly guys tho, and mostly guys who stopped carrying weapons about the time the left the first year of high school. Probably had something to do with that attitude you refer to about … well real men don’t carry knives. I’d say that I stopped carrying one about the time I stopped being and thinking like a boy, and began to ry to think like a man. (OK imo, you stop being a boy around puberty but you don’t actually become a man until something happens to you that moves you the way an initiation would in a tribal community. Often when I was growing up it was someone’s death, often in a car accident.)
I do know of one example where a girl actually pulled a knife on the bloke who was sexually assaulting her, stabbed him and got away. There was no death or report of the assault in the news so I assume the bastard was ok.
And since you asked, I turn 40 today. Hows that for timing?
I know you didn’t mean to imply anything about me either. I moved to Melbourne from Hobart when I was 12. First place we lived was St Kilda (1981-82) in a small flat, then we lived on the border of Glenroy and Strathmore, then round Highpoint.
By the time I was 14 I realised Hobart was as full on as melbourne, so I reckon if I’d grown up in Melbourne I would never have carried a knife, it was the whole moving to the big dangerous city, and spending my first few months there hanging out in St Kilda before it got gentrified again.
“And there’s no doubt it was a more “macho” time. You weren’t allowed to stand up for yourself if someone else started trouble, you were expected to. And yet, the only glassing I ever heard of was perpetrated by Julian Knight. Now the products of the violence-is-always-wrong generations seem to carve each other up with gay abandon.”
Yeah its weird isn’t it. Its probably got something to do with fear, and how if you don’t face fears they come up again.
Humans are violent, and we have the state to regulate our violence to try and control it, and to be the only entity “authorised” to use it.
In the old days you could count on the fact that you would be in a violent situation, so you had better know how to deal with it. I think this made the violence less dangerous, cos there was a kind of code. OK things like … say the kicking that cop gets at the end of that movie Stone. That sort of violence happened, but not in pubs or even in public that much. It was the sort of thing that happened to people who played those games with other dangerous people. Or if someone’s daughter or girlfriend got pack raped. These days it seems to happen anywhere.
I’m not trying to make this sound like some nostalgic utopia either. People got hurt, and in some cases seriously fucked up from this stuff. In some ways we may have been psychologically healthier tho. (Definitely not in other ways – I’m not aching for a return to the good old days.)
The worst thing about the violence is always wrong/we need the state to protect us mentality is that we become dependant on it(the state) and it becomes too powerful. Nothing will protect you. The cops usually come too late, hell even the UN doesn’t act till there is seriously bad violence somewhere.
A big part of the issues that inspired Rewi’s original post come from the relationship between violence and power and who has control over these things. Well thats what I reckon, anyway. Violence can become sublimated, then it just becomes intimidation. Hence the CCTV cameras, which aren’t practically going to end all minor infractions on their own. Practically, in the real world, CCTV footage is an archive of potential evidence that can be accessed, its not an Orwellian type situation where everyone is monitered in public. (Cept at certain times in certain places, like Nimbin.)
Thats just the impression that is built up around the cameras. Thats a big part of their effectiveness. They are a reminder that the ultimate sanction the state has over you is violence, and ultimately the power to take your life if you refuse to submit. (Even a jaywalking ticket could lead to that situation if someone was stubborn enough.)
Its always about the relationship between violence and control.
“The problem with police observing who is doing what and making judgements on the most effective people to “harass”, (your word), is that as soon as you identify a certain type of person, whether it’s “young men of Middle Eastern appearance”, “anglo-celtic males with mullets and attitude”, “young aboriginals”, “Pacific Islanders”, or any class of person, someone from that group will jump up and and complain about Discrimination,” – Chuck
Ok you have just illustrated my major problem with cops in general. You refer to identifying a certain type of person, and that usually refers to harassment.
I was referring to the cops identifying specific individuals, which is what they should do. Identifying a certain “type” of person is stupid, cos all types of people commit crimes. Individuals should be identified in relation to specific things.
If that comes down to harassing someone in an individual situation cos they pose a potential threat, fine. Their behaviour should be the trigger for that harassment, not their type. In which case it wouldn’t actually be harassment.
I dunno if you can see this or not, but identifying a “type” removes the presumption of innocence for everyone of that “type”. Identifying individuals doesn’t remove the presumption of innocence cos you should be basing that identification on observed actions, ie you should have some robust information that connects the individual with a crime or potential threat to public safety.
I have seen (and been subjected to) plenty of cases of harassment. IE police attention based on nothing really. Cept the general suspicion that people are no good. There is a heirarchy of harassment, it usually goes on looks, individual and ethnic looks, age and class.
I have seen cops walking around, bored obviously, harass young upper middle class wasp males at train stations for doing nothin except laugh loudly. All groups of male teenagers should be laughing loudly, unless something is wrong or they are up to something. If there were some kids from the other side of town, or a bunch of lebanese or aboriginal kids then the cops would have harassed them instead, or before they harassed the other kids.
(The police, especially young police can have a serious effect on how people percieve them for the rest of their lives, based on their interactions with young people. Friendliness and pleasantness from the police, instead of an “I’m in charge here” attitude all the time, would go a long way to building good community relations. We all know this, but it doesn’t happen in practice enough.)
This sort of intimidation is stupid, tho it probably appeals to people who generally disapprove of teenage males on principle, and to young bored cops who are self conscious cos they are patrolling somewhere where obviously there is no real potential for trouble. They obviously need to doing something. No doubt the people who disapprove of teenagers feel this is appropriate behaviour and no doubt senior coppers hear of their approval.
“Also, your comment about “hunches” had me scratching my head. What do you think a cop would be doing if he [observed] “who was doing what and make judgements on the most effective people to harass”?
*
Personally, I am against the random searches because I agree they are an infringement of liberty, and as others have already pointed out, the presumption of innocence is removed, but then again, what have you to say about Random Breath Testing?”
I think we may be saying the same thing differently re the “hunches” thing.
Reasonable suspicion probably involves observation, which is the opposite of using a “hunch” (an unsupported opinion basically.)
Random Breath testing … well you are free to drink and drive if you want, and free to suffer the consequences of drinking and driving. (Even Hitler didn’t take away peoples freedom to resist him, cos people actually did. He just presented nasty consequences for people who resisted him.) But there is a difference between driving and just being in public.
Public space is “commons” and people have a right to be in it and just to be themselves. The road may be “commons” (if it isn’t a toll road) but its also specific infrastructure created for use under specific circumstances. People who use it are doing so under a whole series of agreed rules to make a dangerous process safe. Thats why we drive on the left hand side of the road (or the right if you are reading this somewhere like the US). And stop for red lights.
Random Breath Tests are, tehnically, part of the process of maintaining safety in specific infrastructure, not an imposition on people occupying public space. You don’t get RBTed for walking down the street.
I tend to agree with most of what you say tho.
WTF Chuck???
That comment that was addressed to, and in response to a quote from Phillip not chuck.
Sorry Phillip.
Yobbo – “The Licensing Act of 2003 for England and Wales paves the way for 24-hour opening of licensed premises. Senior members of the United Kingdom Government have claimed that the pressure of rigid closing times contributes to the rising problem of binge-drinking and associated harm in the UK. Removing set opening times it is hoped will reduce these problems. These plans have been widely criticised. Moreover, international evidence suggests this may not be the case. Studies from Europe, Iceland, Australia and North America have indicated that extending trading hours may not only fail to reduce alcohol-related problems but might increase them. Evidence exists of licensing liberalisation being followed by rises in alcohol consumption, violent crime, traffic accidents, illicit drug use as well as extra public health and tourism costs”
International Journal of Drug Policy, Volume 16, Issue 6, Pages 363-368
“The strong longitudinal relationship between outlet density and violence greatly strengthens the evidence base that density of alcohol outlets in a suburb is a driver of violence, making liquor licensing and planning regulations legitimate areas for public-health interventions,” said Livingston. Alcohol controls,” noted Room, “that is, limits on the number of licenses, on opening hours, etc., definitely matter, even if we often take them for granted as part of the social scenery.”
ScienceDaily (May 5, 2008)
“Liberalization and deregulation of outlet density and opening hours
will induce an increase in alcohol-related disturbances to public order and threats to safety, whose costs and burden have to be shouldered by the taxpayer and the general public. Evidence indicates that a large proportion of violent crime occurs in and around licensed premises.”
Alcohol and its social consequences – the forgotten dimension
by Harald Klingemann, WHO, 2001
“Any reader of prevention literature will be familiar with the
front runners: taxation, raising the minimum drinking age, controls on hours and density of outlets, brief interventions
in treatment, thiamine supplements, and random breath tests.
The book also contains interesting evidence about strategies
to reduce violence in and around clubs and pubs including
the use of police intelligence to target areas of special
risk. Some pubs are much more prone to violent crimes than
others. The research described provides no comfort for the
UK government’s commitment to increasing opening hours
and availability of alcohol in England and Wales, which is
quite at odds with all the evidence”
Bruce Ritson alcalc.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/41/6/683-a.pdf
“In particular, the liberalisation of hours of trading gives rise to concern. Evidence that this will reduce the incidence of violence is thin and contradictory, but research suggests that increased availability, both in terms of opening hours and in outlet density, is likely to impact on consumption including binge drinking”
Duncan Raistrick Leeds Addiction Unit
and on and on and on …….
LFW, no the CCTV system does not just cover public transport hubs and buses, but covers many of the streets of the CBD. Perthnow reported in April that WA Police now have live access to over 6000 CCTV cameras.
I should add it’s not just the CBD, with local government authorities installing the cameras widely. This appears, in some cases, to have been a joint funding arrangement between the State government and local governments under the State’s anti-graffiti initiative.
Extremely interesting isn’t it, that part of their “evidence” is based on Australian experiences, even though nowhere in Australia has deregulated trading hours.
Of course all of the quotes come from people who are already diametrically opposed to the consumption of alcohol in any form. I beleieve the old term was “Wowser”.
I trust they are all completely objective though, just like Harry Clarke.
Well said Jules. My firm is duty solicitor for this month in Walgett NSW and I’m here training up a new solicitor. My assessment is that crime has dropped here by 50% in the last two years partly because there are about 40 incorrigibles locked up from here and the Lightning Ridge area , but also because police are not harassing indigenous people, (a significant percentage of the population) and are in fact acting “softly softly” and are seeemingly building those bridges for community relations. (It helps also that the resident police prosecutor is a wonderful humane person, aware of indigenous problems and for example so helpful towards negotiations on plea bargaining.)
Alcohol is still a huge problem, responsible for most of the domestic violence, but for once, I dips my lid to the cops.
(When it comes to DOCS, that’s another story, so many indigenous kids in care, unnecessarily…)
Jules. Yes, we do have to protect middle class people from yobs. And we have to protect working and underclass people from yobs too. Many victims of yobs are working class. A victim is a victim and I will back poice in taking on the yobs and thugs no matter if their victim is middle class or working class. Do you suggest they let the thugs beat up middle class people? There are not too many working class people on this site thats for sure. In the area I work its the decent working class people (majority) who would love to see a crackdown on the thugs.
As for those who talk about aborigines being affected let me ask you this. If an attacker is coming at you will you stop to observe his/her race? If they are aboriginal will you just let them beat and rob you. Stop playing the race sympathy card. A yob is a yob, black or white, and if they are hurting people I back the police. Stop making excuses for violence.
Spana, whats a yob?
If you define a yob as someone who engages in senseless violence for no good reason in public, and that class is not a factor in yobbishness, (IE Young men from Toorak are as likely to be yobs as Young men from West Sunshine,) then I have no problem with them being busted for their actions.
But many people use the term yob the way they use the term bogan.
Or westie.
Its a term of distaste for working people. A bit like the way poms use the term “common”.
So if people want to use the police to get other people off the street cos they don’t like the look of them, not cos they have actually done anything yet, those people can go jump. Removing the need for reasonable suspicion before a search enables this process, and in fact takes the emphasis off targeting people responsible for violent behaviour.
Targeting people cos their presence makes other people feel uncomfortable is not on.
Rewi Re Perth “camera city” check the figures in the article you quoted it’s 600 live cameras not 6000 and that’s not much coverage at all – as the article says the rail network and the airport have 1500 between them – don’t worry you could still happily roam naked through Perth CBD after 7pm and not be seen – its usually devoid of humans as well as cctv.
“you could still happily roam naked through Perth CBD after 7pm and not be seen – its usually devoid of humans as well as cctv.”
Watch for the scratchy tumbleweed though.
“Mr Johnson said he expected the system would see up to 6,000 cameras across WA linked to police access by the end of the year.”
Quite right, LFW, 600 now, 6000 by the end of the year.
Folks, just a quick update.
The stop and search legislation is before the WA Parliament at the moment, and the debate’s got a little fiery. I’m not sure exactly why, given that both the Liberal and Labor parties are going to eventually support it. Nonetheless, a couple of Labor MPs have spoken out quite strongly against the Bill, with Alannah MacTiernan and Mark McGowan most widely reported.
From the other side, Peter Abetz has gained a bit of attention today with his comments that it was rising anarchy that led to the German people supporting National Socialism, and his view that:
“When it comes to the crunch, people prefer to be safe than to have freedom.” (Although I note that that ABC Online story has been edited to remove this particular quote which I saw about half an hour ago).
“the debate’s got a little fiery. I’m not sure exactly why, given that both the Liberal and Labor parties are going to eventually support it.”
That would be, umn, politics, Rewi? I’ve been watching bits of it too, quite entertaining. I liked Margaret Quirk’s concern for people who don’t speak English and are about to be searched – apparently the police could carry cards in 100 different languages or something. Anyway the Police Minister asks Quirk “Why didn’t you put this [amendment] in your own Bill of a year ago?”. Quirk answers …. “I’ve had a year to think about it.”
See what good a year in opposition does?