BY SEAN MARTIN-IVERSON
PERTH — As the February 10 state election looms, the major parties are whipping up hysteria over Western Australia's non-existent "crime wave". The Liberals, the Labor Party and the Australian Democrats are competing to promise increased police numbers and law and order policies.
On January 28, Liberal Premier Richard Court announced a range of proposals. They included: extending WA's mandatory sentencing legislation to include car theft; a mandatory two-year extension of minimum sentences for crimes committed against those aged 60 and over; repeat child sex offenders to be detained indefinitely unless they complete rehabilitation programs; and convicted drug traffickers to have their names and addresses listed in a public database for 10 years after their release.
However, according to University of Western Australia criminologist David Indermaur, "There is no evidence to suggest any of these measures will reduce crime rates".
Late last year, the Court government rushed new "home-invasion" legislation through parliament and embarked on a massive publicly funded "government information campaign". Billboards and leaflets declared, "Criminals — beware of new home invasion laws" and "Protect your home and the law will protect you".
The Criminal Code Amendment (Home Invasion) Bill 2000 redefined "home invasion" to mean any act of trespass in someone's home or surrounding property. The proposed legislation will make it legal to "use any force or do anything else" to prevent someone entering a property, eject someone from a property, or prevent someone from committing an offence on a property "as long as the occupier believes the invader intends to commit an offence".
Factors to be taken into account in determining whether the use of force is legal include property owners' previous experiences of burglaries and property owners' state of mind or "nervous disposition". People who are lost, intoxicated, confused, mentally ill or do not appear "respectable" can now be targets of violence, simply by being in someone's yard uninvited.
Bidding war
The Liberal Party claims a Labor state government will be "soft on crime". It claims Labor will repeal WA's "three strikes" mandatory sentencing legislation and will introduce safe injecting rooms for heroin users.
Labor spokesperson Alan Carpenter was quick to distance the ALP from such progressive policies. He pointed out that the ALP wholeheartedly supports mandatory sentencing. Labor has made no commitment to safe injecting facilities for heroin users but rather has proposed a "Drugs Summit" be held to consider a range of proposals.
The ALP is ahead in the bidding war, promising 250 more police at a cost of $56 million. The Court government has promised 200 extra cops. WA Labor leader Geoff Gallop has promised a force of 150 cops to tackle anti-social behaviour on Perth's trains. Unfortunately, the "violence and intimidation" that these cops are to eliminate will not be that regularly inflicted on young and/or black passengers by Westrail's notorious security patrols.
Labor released its law and order policies under the label "Better protection for WA seniors". Well before the Coalition made its law and order plans public, the ALP had been campaigning for tougher penalties for offences against the elderly, people with disabilities, and other "vulnerable persons". Labor justified this as a response to "growing public concern about vicious criminal attacks against older Western Australians".
However, a recent study by the Australian Institute of Criminology confirmed the well-documented but poorly publicised fact that people over 65 are at less risk of being the victims of violent crime than other age groups.
Labor's solution to this fictitious epidemic of assaults against the elderly is $1.4 million extra over four years for more police dogs and horses. Labor has not mentioned (publicly, at least) that increased numbers of mounted police would also be useful against strikers, demonstrators or May 1 blockaders of the stock exchange. Labor's press release notes that horses are "a proven deterrent; they can bolster people's sense of safety and security in a positive way, especially for the elderly".
The Australian Democrats, despite their opposition to mandatory sentencing and some acceptance of rational policies on drug use, have also bought into the "crime wave" hype. The Democrats support increased numbers of police and patrols, and propose some minor reforms rather than a radical shake-up of WA's infamous prison system.
The Democrats' prison policy claims to be seeking "a balance between serving the community's interests and fears, and the condition of the prison system". They argue that "punishment is an important part of the sentencing regime". They do not oppose private prisons.
Socialist alternative
According to Roberto Jorquera, the Democratic Socialist candidate for the seat of Perth: "Only socialist candidates and the Greens have justice policies that move away from a 'more cops, more prisons' approach.
"If you look at who is in prison in WA, it is overwhelmingly people on drug charges or for drug-related offences. There are also a lot of prisoners who have been charged with really minor offences but have defaulted on fines or failed to show up, or in some other way failed to do exactly what the legal system demands that they do, and so they have been thrown into prison.
"WA's growing prison population is made up of people who shouldn't be there. They should be released and the fund devoted to prisons redirected to job creation programs and drug rehabilitation.
"It's in the interests of the major capitalist parties to build the myth of skyrocketing crime, so as to obscure the deepening social crisis that is being caused by the unworkable capitalist system that they are so fond of."
[Contact the Democratic Socialists election campaign at (08) 9218 9608 or email <perth@dsp.org.au>.]