Neighbourhood Watch: STN 1 South YarraRegion 1 Division 2 Stonnington, Victoria, Australia.
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Neighbourhood Watch: STN 1 South Yarra
Region 1 Division 2
Stonnington, Victoria, Australia.
You are here: Home>Newsletters>August 2002
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August, 2002 Rational thinking needed in crime debate IN A RECENT ABC Radio Background Briefing program Dr Don Weatherburn, the director of the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, appealed for a much broader debate on crime, rather than the cops and robbers vote-winning issue which usually passes as debate. Here is an edited version of his talk published in the Sydney Morning Herald: "DOES Australia have a law and order problem? The available evidence supports the popular view that Australia has become much more crime-prone over the past 20 years. We've certainly experienced big increases in burglary, car theft and robbery. But this is only one of our law and order problems. The other is the poverty of public debate about crime control. It's a debate that's almost entirely focussed on whether we have enough police, whether the police have enough powers and whether the courts treat crooks harshly enough. There are two big problems with this focus. The first is that the leverage over crime provided by police and the criminal justice system, while by no means inconsequential, is weaker than some people think. Some studies suggest that increasing the imprisonment rate by ten per cent for example, would reduce crime by less than 2 per cent. The second is that there are many ways of reducing crime that either don't rely on police or the criminal justice system or, if they do, seek to exploit its potential in unconventional ways. Much of the increase in predatory property crime that has occurred over the past few years could have been stopped if mobile phone carriers had been willing to disable stolen mobile phones. So far only Telstra has signalled its willingness to do this, but there's no sign yet it has actually done anything. The unpalatable truth is that there are forces pushing crime up in Australia that are difficult for any police force to control. Like the rise in child neglect and abuse, the growth in long-term unemployment, or the growth in portable consumer goods. Yet there's good reason to believe all these factors are contributing significantly to Australia's crime problems. Even if we could reduce crime in Australia by putting a lot more people behind bars or greatly lengthening prison terms, it would remain an open question whether this is the best way to spend our law enforcement dollar. It costs $163 a day just to keep someone in a medium-security prison. If we increased the NSW prison population by 10 per cent, the taxpayer would have to outlay another $50 million a year. The evidence suggests you'd probably be better off spending this money on the drug court or, perhaps, Youth Justice Conferencing. Both reduce recidivism by more than 20 per cent, but neither costs anything like $50 million a year. Sadly, considerations of cost-effectiveness don't often figure in public debates about crime. The usual pattern is for governments and oppositions to try to outdo each other in showing how tough they are on crime. One of the major long-term causes of crime is inadequate or abusive parenting. We know what sorts of programs improve the quality of parenting and reduce juvenile crime. We've got a long way to go, though, in integrating these programs into mainstream child protection services. These are prosaic options for crime control. They don't excite the media, or the general public, because they aren't simple or dramatic, and they don't involve locking someone up who we can all easily recognise as criminal. But crime control is not a gladiatorial contest between good and evil, between white knights and black knights, between those in favour of police reform and those opposed to it, between going soft on crime and going hard on it. Good crime control policy is about finding solutions to crime problems that are cost-effective and don't produce unintended consequences worse than the crime problem we set out to solve. In the long run, the only way to promote a more rational debate about crime is to find more effective ways of dealing with it. We have to become much more hard-headed, evidence-driven and pragmatic. We have to abandon the tendency to evaluate crime policies on the uni-dimensional basis of how hard or soft they are. Given the seriousness of those problems, I don't think we can afford to pass up any opportunity for a more rational approach to law and order." SMH Burglary victim thanks neighbours I received the following email which is published with the senders consent: "To Residents of Albion Street and Neighbourhood Watch. We are indebted to the speedy reactions of a number of our neighbours, and Members of Neighbourhood Watch, that witnessed a man leaving our property in Albion Street (Area STN 9) one morning. Your quick reactions, in alerting the Police, helped in their identification and apprehension of the Burglar later that day with some of our stolen gear still in his possession. We have unfortunately lost some priceless heirloom jewellery and travel documents, but our Thanks to both you, and the Police, who made partial recovery of our possessions possible. We are again currently overseas, and trust that a combination of house-sitter and your continued vigilance will see us return to an uninterrupted home. Many Thanks." Restorative justice in crime prevention IN A REPORT to the US Congress on the evaluation of various crime prevention programs, the Community Accountability Conferencing Program run by the Federal Police in Canberra was judged as one crime prevention program which had shown encouraging results. This is a program which falls under the umbrella term of Restorative Justice. Heather Strang, Director of the Centre for Restorative Justice at the ANU described the process in a report to the Criminology Research Council: "Restorative justice is a range of informal justice practices designed to require offenders to take responsibility for their wrongdoing and to meet the needs of affected victims and communities. The emphasises is the repair of harm resulting from the crime, including harm to relationships. Victims have the opportunity for a say in how the offence will be resolved, while offenders are required to understand the consequences of their actions and the harm they have caused. A core principle in restorative justice is to balance offender needs, victim needs and the needs of the community. Community is usually seen primarily as the victim's and offender's ‘community of concern', that is those people in the lives of the victim and offender who care most about them, though it may encompass the broader community in which the offence took place as well. Restorative justice rests on the following principles: • Crime is primarily conflict between individuals resulting in injuries to victims, communities and the offenders themselves; only secondarily is it lawbreaking. • The overarching aim of the criminal justice process should be to reconcile parties while repairing the injuries caused by the crime. • The criminal justice process should facilitate active participation by victims, offenders and their communities. It should not be dominated by the government to the exclusion of others. The concept of restorative justice has a lineage derived from many indigenous as well as pre-industrial Western justice traditions. They aim to provide a process of resolution between the principals in a dispute, under the auspices of a mediator, with an emphasis on reparation. Parties other than the victim and offender are rarely present, the program is usually restricted to juvenile offenders and involves collaboration between police, probation and welfare agencies." Personal protection program for women A FREE, one day, personal protection program for women is being offered at Re-Creation Health Club in Chapel Street. The program will be from 12:30 to 4:00pm on Sunday 18 August at Shop 1, 402 Chapel Street, South Yarra. Any women interested in attending are requested to register at reception, or call 9827 7556. Graffiti Kits at Prahran service centre A free Graffiti Removal Kit is now available at the Council's Prahran Service Centre, for properties with an identified graffiti problem. The Kit contains a 500ml pump spray graffiti remover, goggles, disposable gloves, breathing mask, scourer, cloth and material Safety Data Sheet. A permission slip is required to be completed by the Property owner prior to taking delivery of the Kit. Graffiti Hotline 1800 067 072. Next Meeting
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Last modified 7 September 2003.