Law and Order

I heard the Western Australian Police Minister, the Hon Rob Johnson, on the radio as I drove to work this morning talking about how wonderful it is going to be when the police are given the power to search people for drugs or weapons without necessarily having had their suspicions about that person aroused by their behaviour or associates, as well as giving the Police Commissioner the power to designate specific areas and times as places where these powers can be exercised.

He wanted people to get the message that if they were going to go to these areas they should make sure they didn't carry drugs or weapons and then they wouldn't get into trouble. Some people like the line of arguement that if you had done nothing wrong then you had nothing to worry about.

It all sounded very reasonable until someone commented that this proposition cut right across one of the fundamental principles of a free and democratic society - "the presumption of innocence." Don't we, as citizens in a free society, have the right to expect that Police will not stop us and trouble us for a little of our time to investigate something, unless they have reasonable grounds to suspect we might be able to help them with their enquiries? Yet I could see the perceived benefit for public order that the new powers might bring.

In the same interview, the Police Minister also informed us of the repealing of laws that allowed possession of marijuana in small portions for personal use in a manner similar to driving offences - thus not incuring a criminal record. Back to the bad old days - just bang 'em up!

It occured to me that given the pressures on the State Budget it seemed odd to be creating a situation in which it would be imperative to spend perhaps a Billion Dollars building new prisons around the state to house all these newly convicted criminals humanely - not to mention the weekly cost of keeping them in such places.

Politicians seem to love the Law and Order band wagon. It is just a pity that people don't think beyond the words that tickle their ears to see the underlying meaning of propositions and the long-term consequences of them on us all.