The Australian Criminal Justice System
Hallmarks of Law and Order Rhetoric
Introduction
Australia spends $6.8 billion per year to maintain law and order. Further, other governmental expenditures, such as those on courts, police, correctional homes, and services, increase by approximately 2.4 percent every year (Weatherburn, 2004).
Any information relating to crimes generally reaches the people through four essential sources. Firstly, through crimes recorded by police, secondly, through crime victim surveys, thirdly, self-reported offending surveys and finally through accident or emergency or drug-test data (Weisberg & White, 1987).
Among these four sources the most essential is the crimes recorded by the police. The crime reports of the police are extremely helpful and a reliable guide which provides the details of the crimes in any given area.
These statistics generally list homicides, property crimes, burglaries, vehicle thefts, and some other violent crimes. However, one issue regarding police crime statistics is the legal definition of the constitution of crimes.
The second source is the crime victim surveys. These surveys are representative samples of the general population and are used to gauge the prevalence and incidence of crimes that rise or fall.
However, this source has a number of disadvantages. First, it is difficult to conduct such services without an obvious victim, and second, these surveys are comparatively expensive.
Also, it is difficult to interview younger people who have victims of crimes about their experience.
The third alternative source is the self-reported offending survey. These surveys are similar to the crime victim surveys in that they use the same methodology.
Finally accident or emergency or drug-test data sources also helps in assessing the trends in crime (Weisberg & White, 1987).
In this research study the researcher aims to explore the rhetoric aspects of law and order and the various social groups that are affected by the rhetoric law and order. The researcher further concentrates on the study of one particular social group and how the rhetoric law and order affects that group in various ways.
“Law and order” Rhetoric in Australia
It is quite known that crime is very broad term and hence prevention of crime depends on the area or the extent of crime. The word crime is used in political rhetoric in the manner so as to believe that the definition provided is clear, settled, uniform, properly prosecuted and systematically punished (White, 1985).
Regrettably, there is a shortage of well-versed discussion on the public and political ’law and order’ talk, and consequently the insufficiencies of these suppositions hardly ever appear. In the country of Australia there exists the popular view of crimes and criminals (Weisberg & White, 1987).
The persistence of this view is due to the complexities that we have found in Australia for a long time. In the nineteenth century, the father of modern sociology, Emile Durkheim, observed and stated that the ‘social world is made up of physical entities’.
Hence, in order to determine the criminal justice system, stress should be placed on three distinct categories of people. Firstly, it is necessary to focus on the people who carry out illegal activities, the police officers who apprehend them, the courts where the trials are held, and the prisons where they are kept (Hirschman, 1991).
Durkheim did not concentrate on the importance on the organization of law. Rather he emphasized more on the pure and legal view of criminal conduct.
There indeed exists a tough ‘law and order’ rhetoric, but the definite implementation of the policies and special measures are constantly let down by the resources and capacity of the government and related agencies (Hogg & Brown, 1999).
This deficiency in capacity has gradually become evident in the last three decades as the state’s control has snowed due to the presence of the internal weaknesses and levels of demands placed upon them (Lea & Chan, 1999).
In international law, the rhetoric of law and order was first assembled in the 1950s in the United States when governors and law enforcement officials tried to mobilize white opposition to the Civil Rights Movement.
Later, in Brown v. Board of Education (Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 1954), civil rights activists, with the help of direct action, compelled the southern states to desegregate public facilities (Pavlich, 1999).
However, these methods were considered criminal and an attempt to undermine law and order. Again, during the mid-1950s and late 1960s, Martin Luther developed the philosophy of civil disobedience. This philosophy was considered by some to be a major cause of crime.
In earlier days, law and order were informal and immediate. This resulted in a number of weaknesses in the mechanism, such as the absence of strategic planning, proper evaluation, consistency in chronic policies, or appropriate coordination between the principal agencies.
In the case of appropriation of budgets, generally, they were undertaken by senior officials and negotiations between them rather than on normal assessment based upon the needs of the agencies. Due to the large number of departments and agencies, this is one of the most challenging parts of the government.
In contemporary times, the law and justice segment comprises of the Department of Justice and Attorney General, National Judicial Staff Services, Ombudsman Commission, RPNGC, Correctional Services, Magisterial Services, Office of the Public Prosecutor and Public Solicitor.
During the 1990s, the Department of National Planning and Rural Development took the initiative to improve coordination and planning throughout the law and justice segment.
All departments and agencies have their own frameworks, procedures, and corporate plans. Moreover, the principles of judicial independence in the Constitution further restrict inter-agency coordination.
One constant problem faced is the absence of government support and appropriate leadership in the departments. Further, with respect to the other areas of policy, there are many inconsistencies among the different governments and departmental administrations (Weisberg & White, 1987).
Present ministers and officials generally attempt to make their presence felt by purposely abandoning the initiatives taken by their predecessors.
New and innovative mechanisms are being set up where the emphasis should have been on improving the already existing frameworks (Ward & Woods, 1972).
These recommendations come up again and again and depict the vacuum between policy rhetoric and implementation. They also depict the absence of corporate memory among decision-makers.
Social Group affected by Rhetoric ‘Law and Order’
In the study below the social group that is being focused on is the ethnic groups existing in Australia and the study elaborately discusses the affect of rhetoric law and order on this social group.
Before proceeding with the research, it is essential that a short incident relating to the ethnic group and the effect of law and order on them be mentioned.
During the late 1990s, a group of ethnic community workers at a forum on ethnic crime complained of the discrimination and police harassment that was made on the Arabic-speaking people at a ‘stop and search’ campaign at the Cantebury Bankstown area (aic, 2014).
This incident took place after the events of Lakemba and Punchbowl. Later the Arabic speaking communities of the South-west Sydney announced a public meeting to be held where the neighbourhood was called to speak about such similar experiences.
At that point, the local Labor Member of Parliament came into the community centre, which was the venue for the meeting, and made gestures that indicated that he was trying to remind the group that they were dependent on the government due to the funds received from them (Weisberg & White, 1987).
These events, which occurred in Sydney, resulted in more terror in Sydney and New South Wales. The ethnic gangs and crimes are generally the Lebanese and Middle Eastern immigrants in Sydney.
Further after the 9/11 attacks in the United States there are more panic on the Middle Eastern crime and also aggravated the anti-Muslim feelings throughout the country.
The essential point of concern is the relationship between the coloured immigrants and the rhetoric of law and order existing in the country (AIC, 2014). Throughout the past five decades Australia has attempted to maintain a large-scale migration program.
One of the vital reasons for that is the labor force account for a major source of white settlement immigration and also accounts for the population growth (cedem, 2014).
After 1945, around 5.6 million immigrants arrived in Australia. Presently, if statistics are checked it will reveal that approximately 18.5 million people were born overseas.
Even though there are a lot of claims of these ethnic groups being involved in criminal gangs, there is no such evidence that supports this view or no statistics that state that these groups are over –represented in criminal activity.
Nevertheless, because no proper data is available on ethnic criminality, these data are usually tempered (Cedem, 2014).
Looking into the international arena, if we look at United Kingdom, even there the black people are discriminated upon by the criminal justice system. Scholars argued that the experience of the black people of the criminal justice system depicts that the rhetoric of the law did not agree with the theory of the practice and reality.
They further stated that law is not color-blind yet the black people have been subject to criminalization. Here when we refer to black it includes the afro-Caribbean descendants, the Asian descendants and such descendants and immigrants from the Indian Subcontinent. The conditions in the country are not very different.
Hence a vivid analysis of the rhetoric law and order would suggest that in most nations including Australia the ethnic social groups have been subject to a huge amount of social and political atrocities due to the contemporary law and order system.
There are a number of instances which point out the problems of these ethnic groups and their status in the society. Among the areas where there are immense chances of atrocity due to the law and order system one instance has been mentioned below.
Proceeding to a particular aspect of the rhetoric of law and order, we look at the police force in Australia, which took up the challenge of adapting to policing and strategies that tend to meet the changes of Australian society (a, 2014).
Australian society is a diverse mix of cultures and linguistic groups. One recommendation would be to recruit police officers from ethnic and minority groups, which would be a positive initiative.
However, in such cases, the police force should focus on the conditions necessary for the minority members to work with the police organization.
Further, in this case, it should also be noted that the minority ethnic officers are usually subject to racism, name calling within the police ranks and there are also chances of them being resented by the white members in public.
It needs to be kept in mind that in this country most of the ethnic communities are reluctant to join the police and the ones who do join are generally placed in a difficult position in their own communities.
Management should be more careful regarding minority officers and give them similar career opportunities as is given to all other officers.
Conclusion
Improvement in law and order, both in rhetoric and in reality, depends on the invention of successful methods of preventing crimes and identifying their root causes.
The prevention of social crimes should emphasize the organization of the social community and the effects and disadvantages of crime commission. Developmental crime prevention focuses on child care, health care, etc.
Consequently, it should be remembered that the mere application of technologically sound, quick, and simple solutions is not enough; it should also include community-based activities, which should be backed by proper evaluation and good implementation.
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