Professor Tony Vinson, former head of the NSW prisons system before he was sacked by the Wran Labor government, works in the Department of Social Work at the University of New South Wales. An outspoken advocate for progressive reform of the criminal justice system over many years, he calls the current hysteria around law and order a "devil's auction". The competing bidders are the NSW Liberal and Labor politicians whose self-serving appeals "to vengeful passions are the antithesis of civilised life".
Commenting on the reason why people like the Director of Public Prosecutions have spoken out against the pre-election law-and order push, he said, "The custodians of standards in the criminal justice system have felt obliged to speak out in order to prevent what seems to be politicking bequeathing a defective justice system".
Vinson said that those politicians who argue that there is a "crime wave" are "immovable in their attitudes" in the face of hard statistics proving the opposite from the NSW government agency responsible, the Bureau for Crime Statistics Research. "[The politicians] simply say that if that is the case there is still far too much crime, even if it isn't running at as high a level as previously."
According to Vinson crime levels in NSW are comparable with overseas figures for house breaking and car stealing in overseas cities of the same size. As well, "we have always been fortunate in having relatively low rates of crimes against people".
Commenting on the so-called "truth-in-sentencing" introduced in the 1989 Sentencing Act, Vinson said there was no evidence that the resulting longer sentences had affected the level of crime.
That was why, Vinson said, some European countries in the last decade have turned their attention to programs of crime prevention. "In France, the Netherlands, Northern Europe and England, you have very extensive crime prevention schemes, financed from the centre, but usually conducted in partnership with local communities in an authentic effort do something about the level of crime."
The point has been to try and alter the social circumstances and strengthen the community bonds in areas where crime is prevalent. Evidence shows that such crime prevention schemes cost a fraction of the cost of trying to solve the crime problem by locking up large numbers of people.
South Australia has experimented to a modest degree with similar programs, but Australia hasn't gone very far at all in that direction yet, said Vinson. "Instead we've got this competition between political parties to try and outdo each other by threatening to lock people up for life."
On NSW Premier Fahey's proposed "three strikes" law, Vinson commented that the government had no idea of the policy's consequences. "I know that immediately following that announcement, people were running about in government departments trying to estimate how many people currently in prison would be eligible for the 'third strike-you're in' treatment and what it would mean in terms of new prison construction and the like."
That that sort of fundamental information hadn't even been collected before the highly emotive policy was announced was, he said, a condemnation of policy making on the run. Vinson said he was saddened that in the draconian nature of the current political auction, there was little to distinguish the two political parties. However, "in other respects, the Labor Party policy on prisons is progressive. The ALP has announced its intention to try and remove from prison many of those who don't belong there and develop alternative punishments."
Commenting on the need for support and in some cases financial compensation for victims of crime, Vinson said they should not be disqualified from conveying a point of view on criminal penalties, but theirs must not be "the determinative view".