Policing and the Death Penalty
Brisbane's Sunday Mail of 06 November 2005 featured, under Jim Soorley's byline, an editorial titled "Police sentenced Bali kids to death". I can't find it on the Sunday Mail's web site, but here are a couple of excerpts:
It is now very clear to all who have followed the story of the Bali Nine that our federal police sold nine young Australians down the tube.
If any of the Bali Nine end up facing a firing squad for this crime, the AFP will have young Aussie blood on its hands.
Readers will likely recall that the Bali Nine are nine Australians arrested in Bali, Indonesia for possession of large quantities of heroin or for conspiracy. The arrests were made as the offenders were at Denpasar airport preparing to fly to Australia, some of them with kilograms of heroin in packages strapped to their bodies under their clothes.
In literal terms, if the Bali Nine are sentenced to death, it will be by an Indonesian court. Soorley is extending causality, suggesting that without the assistance of the AFP, Indonesian authorities would not have arrested the Bali 9, and that they would not now be awaiting a possible death sentence.
If you're going to extend the chain of causality, why not extend it a little further? The "Aussie kids" - a lovely emotive term that, they're all young adults - have been sentenced to death by their own choice to become involved in heroin smuggling. They have claimed that they faced threats of harm to themselves or their family if they didn't participate, and these claims may even be true, but if so they don't excuse their acts - they had a choice, and the better choice would have been to talk to the police. I would go so far as to say that the "Aussie kids" have been sentenced to death by whomever it was that organised the smuggling operation.
Part of the AFP's recent successes in combating international drug crime is down to the AFP's strategy of close engagement with the Police agencies of neighbouring countries. Many of the countries in the region still retain the death penalty and are likely to continue to do so for some years. This fact should not be permitted to hamstring Police efforts to detect and catch criminals.
If any of the Bali 9 are executed, by Soorley's logic, the hangman's hands will be many - the Indonesian courts, the Indonesian customs and Police, Australian Police, but also the Bali 9 themselves and whomever recruited them for their short careers as drug mules.
The death penalty is no longer supported in Australia, but many of our foreign neighbours don't agree. An argument could be made for selective international cooperation based on the likelihood of a death sentence in the event of a conviction. Ultimately, however, the decision as to whether the death penalty should be applied is one for each nation's people. A policy of refusing to cooperate in potential death penalty cases would be cutting off our nose to spite our face - failure to cooperate would likely result in persons responsible for major crimes in Australia remaining at large, and the refusal would not be likely to change other countries' positions regarding the death penalty.
Indonesia has responsibility for sentencing those Aussie kids to death, if it should come to that. That's their decision. The Bali 9's decision was to risk the penalties in Indonesia and Australia. Soorley's decision was to denigrate the AFP for their efforts in fighting transnational crime by painting them as executioners.
It is now very clear to all who have followed the story of the Bali Nine that our federal police sold nine young Australians down the tube.
If any of the Bali Nine end up facing a firing squad for this crime, the AFP will have young Aussie blood on its hands.
Readers will likely recall that the Bali Nine are nine Australians arrested in Bali, Indonesia for possession of large quantities of heroin or for conspiracy. The arrests were made as the offenders were at Denpasar airport preparing to fly to Australia, some of them with kilograms of heroin in packages strapped to their bodies under their clothes.
In literal terms, if the Bali Nine are sentenced to death, it will be by an Indonesian court. Soorley is extending causality, suggesting that without the assistance of the AFP, Indonesian authorities would not have arrested the Bali 9, and that they would not now be awaiting a possible death sentence.
If you're going to extend the chain of causality, why not extend it a little further? The "Aussie kids" - a lovely emotive term that, they're all young adults - have been sentenced to death by their own choice to become involved in heroin smuggling. They have claimed that they faced threats of harm to themselves or their family if they didn't participate, and these claims may even be true, but if so they don't excuse their acts - they had a choice, and the better choice would have been to talk to the police. I would go so far as to say that the "Aussie kids" have been sentenced to death by whomever it was that organised the smuggling operation.
Part of the AFP's recent successes in combating international drug crime is down to the AFP's strategy of close engagement with the Police agencies of neighbouring countries. Many of the countries in the region still retain the death penalty and are likely to continue to do so for some years. This fact should not be permitted to hamstring Police efforts to detect and catch criminals.
If any of the Bali 9 are executed, by Soorley's logic, the hangman's hands will be many - the Indonesian courts, the Indonesian customs and Police, Australian Police, but also the Bali 9 themselves and whomever recruited them for their short careers as drug mules.
The death penalty is no longer supported in Australia, but many of our foreign neighbours don't agree. An argument could be made for selective international cooperation based on the likelihood of a death sentence in the event of a conviction. Ultimately, however, the decision as to whether the death penalty should be applied is one for each nation's people. A policy of refusing to cooperate in potential death penalty cases would be cutting off our nose to spite our face - failure to cooperate would likely result in persons responsible for major crimes in Australia remaining at large, and the refusal would not be likely to change other countries' positions regarding the death penalty.
Indonesia has responsibility for sentencing those Aussie kids to death, if it should come to that. That's their decision. The Bali 9's decision was to risk the penalties in Indonesia and Australia. Soorley's decision was to denigrate the AFP for their efforts in fighting transnational crime by painting them as executioners.
posted by Hiraethin at 8:39 am
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