Populist approach to violence hardly good public policy

Josh Gordon | The Age | December 8, 2011


Melbourne is a safe place to live, so what's all the hysteria about?

Melbourne is a bad-ass town. At least it is according to outspoken Liberal MP Bernie Finn, who recently told his local paper that parts had become so dangerous automatic weaponry was needed.

''Places like Werribee, Sunshine, Williamstown . . . have suffered for a long time,'' he said. There are places . . . without a flak jacket and a sub-machinegun you just wouldn't go there.''

Finn was no doubt being colourful, as is his custom. But the comments underscore a growing sense of hysteria being encouraged by some political figures and members of the commentariat.

You might be forgiven for thinking Melbourne is in danger of being overrun by ''thugs'' (a word that incidentally derives from the Hindi ''thuggee'', who were members of an extinct Indian robber cult who killed their victims with knotted scarves) who have been allowed to ride roughshod by liberal-minded judges.

But, according to analyst Economist Intelligence Unit in its global liveability survey, Melbourne has once again overtaken Vancouver as the world's most liveable city. It is one of the safest places to live in the world.

In 2010-11 there were 6429 crimes committed for every 100,000 Victorians, a fall of 3.9 per cent compared with the previous year, and the lowest since comparable records began in 1993.

While it is true that the rate of so-called crimes ''against the person'' increased by 4 per cent, as new Police Commissioner Ken Lay points out, this has had much to do with the burgeoning problem of family-related violence. Crimes linked to family incidents, for example, leapt by an alarming 26 per cent in the year. In contrast, other crimes against the person increased by just 0.1 per cent (murders fell sharply).

The bottom line is that it is difficult to say whether Melbourne's streets are becoming less safe. Even if you accept they are, it is simplistic to blame hoons, thugs and louts, as if they represent a new subspecies of humanity.

The Baillieu government's populist approach to law and order has been its controversial tough-on-crime agenda, which includes the abolition of suspended sentences and home detention, minimum jail terms (except in extenuating circumstances) for 16 and 17-year-olds who commit acts of gross violence and new ''baseline'' minimum sentences.

A better approach would be to focus on ''upstream'' causes, rather than tackling ''downstream'' symptoms.

Ray Denning and lessons unlearnt in our justice system

Jack the Insider Blog | The Australian | 24 August 2011 

NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell deserves a round of applause. One of his election commitments was to examine the failures of the Bail Act (2007). In June of this year, the O’Farrell Government announced a judicial review into the Bail Act.

Retired NSW Supreme Court judge Hal Sperling QC will oversee the review which will report in November.

A promise made has been kept and Premier O’Farrell and his government gets a big tick.

The Bail Act was a flawed piece of legislation, driven largely by an appalling state Labor Government too eager to promote itself as being “tough on crime”.

Changes to the Bail Act created some very nasty unintended consequences. The policy wonks call it getting the settings wrong. But in human terms the costs are immeasurable or at least we won’t be able to measure them for some years to come.

Rates of youth detention skyrocketed in NSW; up by a third. Of those remanded in custody, only one third had committed subsequent offences. The overwhelming majority had been incarcerated awaiting trial for breaches of bail conditions, most commonly failing to comply with curfews. Many will await trial in custody for a year or more. Hopefully, the review will put a stop to this madness.

In Victoria, the Baillieu Government has run a “tough on crime” agenda. Ask the premier a question on transport, health or education and his brow quickly furrows but mention crime or God forbid, youth crime and he’ll go on for hours.

Now the Baillieu Government is moving forward with its plan to introduce mandatory minimum two year sentences for offenders between the age of 16 and 17 convicted of crimes involving violence.

It smacks of a stunt because sentencing data from the Children’s Court in Victoria shows that young violent offenders are not getting off easily. Secondly, a report from the Sentencing Advisory Council of Victoria reveals empirical evidence that longer sentences don’t act as a specific deterrent to offenders regardless of age.

In researching and creating the subjects and their histories for the documentary series, Tough Nuts on Foxtel’s CI Channel, one overwhelmingly common theme was the criminogenic effects of incarceration. In other words, that prisons and youth detention centres themselves are a major determinant of recidivism.

Our subjects were the worst of the worst: career criminals, mass murderers, drug dealers, people at the very top of the criminal hierarchy. They are the most notorious figures in Australian criminal history: Chris “Rentakill” Flannery, Dennis “Mr Death” Allen, Len “Mr Big” McPherson and John “The Magician” Regan.

Almost invariably they were products of a juvenile detention system where they were subjected to protracted physical and sexual abuse. Grafton Boys’ Home was the alma mater of any serious crook you could name from the 1970s and 80s; Stan “The Man” Smith, George Freeman, “Neddy” Smith and Len McPherson himself.

Let there be order in court over Knight

James Campbell | Sunday Herald Sun | 31 July 2011

IF YOU are as old as I am, you probably remember where you were when you heard about what was at first called the Clifton Hill Massacre.

That Sunday night in August 1987, I was at home with the radio on when a report came in that a sniper was firing at cars on Hoddle St north of the Eastern Freeway. Within an hour the ABC was saying five people were dead and a man was in custody.

Next morning's Sun reported police as saying "the gunman, 19, of Ramsden St, Clifton Hill, had had military training".

In those pre-Port Arthur days, we thought this type of thing happened in the US, with its easy access to firearms. It seemed incredible that seven people could be randomly shot dead on a Sunday evening in the middle of Melbourne.

It seemed incredible, too, that the author of such an enormity should be a drunk teenager dismissed by an anonymous cop that week as "just a weed, a nothing".

Later, as we learned more about the Melbourne High School boy and failed Duntroon cadet, the more pathetic and less interesting he became.

His adopted parents had divorced when he was nine. He lived with his mother while idolising his absent father, a major in the army. Despite being clever, he performed poorly at school and lasted less than a year at Duntroon before being kicked out after a fracas in a Canberra nightclub. He later claimed to have been bullied.

What I recall people being intrigued about was not the character or motivation of this nothing, this weed, but how it was he was legally able own the M14 assault rifle, 12-gauge pump action and semi-automatic .22 he used in his crimes.

Maybe it is because Julian Knight and I are about the same age, but I remember so vividly contemplating the 27-year minimum sentence he was given in November 1988 and reflecting it didn't seem long for what he'd done.

But as we approach the date in 2014 when he will be eligible for parole, it needs to be remembered that, for its time, Justice George Hampel's sentence for Knight was a long one. Moreover, it was not - aside from reasonable objections of survivors and families of the dead - controversial.

At the pre-sentence hearings, the Crown didn't ask for Knight to be locked up for the term of his natural life and it didn't appeal against the 27-year minimum. Nor did politicians climb over each other promising to ensure he would never be released, as Ted Baillieu and Daniel Andrews are doing.

Big holes in big lock-up scheme

Royce Millar | The Age | 11 June 2011

JOHN Wayne would be spitting in the dust. Texas, the home ground of American rough justice, has gone soft on crime. Twenty years ago, zero tolerance swept the US, epitomised in Republican Clayton Williams's pledge that if elected Texan governor in 1990 (he lost), he would have first time drug offenders ''bustin' rocks''.

But even in Texas things get complicated once the TV cameras have turned away and politicians find themselves governing in the real world.

The lock-'em-up policies of the 1980s and 1990s led to rising prisoner numbers and broken budgets. Rather than putting an end to crime, prisons seemed to be incubating it.

Now, reduced sentences for drug offences and a big boost to job training and rehabilitation programs for non-violent offenders are among recent Texan reforms also being reproduced in conservative states, including Louisiana and Indiana, across the US.

Like Clayton Williams, Victorian Liberal leader Ted Baillieu knew well that a simple tough-on-crime message would play well in short media grabs at polling time last year. It was a core theme used by the Coalition to launch a barrage of law and order policies, including boosting police recruitment, bail reform, and the abolition of home detention and suspended sentences. There would be literally ''zero tolerance''. ''Offenders who do the crime will do the time.''

Seven months later, honeymoon over, the Coalition is facing its own real-world dilemma: getting tough is more costly than it expected or, maybe, admitted. Possibly even imagined.