Today's treat is m,edia coverage of the promise by the Opposition Leader to spend $179 million to "tackle organised gangs and knife crime" if the Coalition wins.
What are "organised gangs", as distinct from the disorganised gangs that appear in law reports and in law enforcement studies? The James Hardie mob? The HIH boys? Directors of the former packaging cartel, inc colourful entrepreneur Richard Pratt (the big sugar daddy who believed in sharing the lerv)?
The answer is not clear, but there are media opportunities to be generated and uncritical reporting, so disregard inconvenient statistics or research such as this month's AIC note on '(Mis)perceptions of crime in Australia' and ramp up the fear. (The AIC elsewhere states that "The number of homicide victims has declined steadily at a rate similar to that of homicide incidents. There were 266 victims in 2006-07, and 351 victims in 1990-91.")
The Coalition promises to 'target gang crime with a national squad and database'. Sounds good ... until you recall that there are already mechanisms for cooperation and that most gang crime is a state/territory matter.
Realists might similarly raise an eyebrow over the promise to "toughen penalties for those caught carrying knives and increase restrictions on knife imports". The Commonwealth can readily restrict imports, given its power under the Constitution. Whether that will make 'the knife problem' go away - if there is indeed a fundamental knife problem - is another matter. The forces of darkness (and I'm of course referring to knife wielding criminals rather than what one Coalition member dubbed the 'Sussex Street Death Squad') will presumably be able to buy their own knives domestically or even manufacture their own.
'Knife restrictions' are broadly a matter of state/territory law. The Commonwealth would need to persuade the state/territory governments or engage in 'extreme constitutional ingenuity' (what one colleague refers to as the legal equivalent of 'extreme sport', ie involving bruises and tears and broken bones and ruptured spleen).
Mr Abbott claims that -
The current Government has let our country down when it comes to policing.Are they? The statistics don't show that.
Knives are helping to make our streets far less safe.
Shadow attorney-general George Brandis said "more could be done nationally" to stop organised crime and that "Increasingly people see crime as a national problem". Heaven forbid that we should disabuse people of dubious perceptions and allocate finite law enforcement resources on a rational basis rather than to reinforce the noise from a political dogwhistle.
The Home Affairs Minister, Brendan O'Connor, is not much more persuasive, proclaiming that -
These things have come into this country - it's really important we restrict the capacity for that to happen.Expect the SWAT boys to confiscate your cutlery drawer in the near future?
If we can restrict the access, if we can make it really hard for people to access these weapons, we just reduce the likelihood of people possessing them and of course committing certain assaults.
That is presumably the implication, if we take Mr Abbott's words at face value, because he stated that -
We have towards 300 homicides a year in Australia, and almost 50 per cent of these homicides involve knife crime.The reality is that several hundred people a year are not being killed in the street by strangers, organised crime gangs, disorganised crime gangs, terrorists or the strange looking, gay alien predator from LA Zombie. Instead, the dicing, slicing & deceasing (as one criminologist friend puts it) involves intimates. You are more likely to be stabbed to death with kitchen implements in your own home by a maddened (or substance-affected) spouse, friend or child than by the 'feral with the flick-knife' that apparently looms large in the minds of the politicians and pollsters.
It's important that we crackdown on knife crime.
The Coalition's site, apart from reiterating recent rhetoric about funding for CCTV, offers a few more details. The promise is to
provide $179 million over four years to tackle violent gang and knife crime and build safer communities.No permits for nice knives and nothing about sharpening the nice variety.
To support the crime-fighting efforts of local communities and the states and territories, the Coalition will establish a National Violent Gangs Database so that law enforcement agencies can better track 'bikie' and other violent gang activity across jurisdictions. Funding of $33 million will be committed to establishing the database.
We will also establish a National Violent Gangs Squad through the Australian Crime Commission (ACC). Funding of $95 million will be committed to the establishment of the Squad. At least 200 additional investigators will be recruited to the ACC through secondment from the Australian Federal Police and state and territory police. These investigators will have with an on-ground presence across the country to work with local police and investigative services.
The Coalition will also implement a National Knife Crime Action Plan to tackle the growing incidence of knife crime in the community. Initiatives under the Plan will include additional funding of $1 million for hand-held metal detectors to assist police in the search for concealed weapons.
We will prohibit that importation into Australia of dangerous hunting knives and standardising the issue of permits for the purchase of dangerous knives online. We will also work with the states and territories to harmonise knife crime laws and penalties.
