How to Combat Beach Crime

In The Australian, 13 Dec 2005, Paul Comrie-Thomson writes:

As The Daily Telegraph in Sydney reported on the day before the Cronulla riots, for years Bondi beach had experienced bashings of lifesavers and locals and intimidation of beachgoers, particularly of young women. The perpetrators were gangs of Middle Eastern background.

In January 1999, undercover policemen placed a gang of about 40 youths under surveillance. Troublemakers were identified. Uniformed police officers arrived in police trucks and ordered the troublemakers to move on because of their offensive behaviour. The youths refused and they were arrested. To the amazement of the police, beachgoers who had witnessed the arrests gave the officers a standing ovation. But that was not the end of the matter. As the Telegraph notes: "It took a concerted, sustained effort by eastern suburbs police, but by 2003 the gangs were gone."

It took four years to bring the rule of law to Bondi beach. Four years of persistent police work, at just one beach.

So that's what's required at Cronulla.

Race Riot in Cronulla

These are the headlines of the most-viewed articles in today's SMH.

1. Race riots spread to suburbs
2. Thugs ruled the streets, and the mob sang Waltzing Matilda
3. United in condemnation, divided over the causes
4. Worst possible outcome - vigilantes rip unity to shreds
5. 'What is Australian anyway?'
6. Strike force probes new hate alert
7. Locals talk of fear and disgust after violence of bloody Sunday
8. Ethnic tensions troubling the whole neighbourhood
9. Nasty reality surfs in as ugly tribes collide
10. PM refuses to use racist tag

"What happened?"

For years, groups of Lebanese youths have been causing trouble on Cronulla beach (a suburb in the south of Sydney): verbally harassing women, kicking sand at people; that sort of thing. It's the kind of trouble that maladjusted youths like to cause: not bold enough to get the police involved, but enough persistent niggle to get noticed, feel a sense of power, and make a firm statement that you have no intention to blend in. That doesn't need to be a racial blend, just some kind of cultural or social difference that can easily exist among people of the same race, like youths making a nuisance of themselves at a shopping centre, for instance. But it's easy (too easy) to pick on race as the key issue here. Cronulla and its surrounding suburbs are one of the last white enclaves in Sydney. The few youth of Lebanese or similar origin that live in the area cause no trouble and receive no trouble, anecdotal evidence suggests. But that's common sense anyway. If you live in an area and have your head screwed on right, you adopt the civil code of that area, which on the beach generally means enjoy yourself and be considerate of others. The troublemakers live outside the area but are connected by the train line or, of course, by car.

"OK, but what happened?"

Last weekend, a lifeguard was physically assaulted by – you guessed it – a gang of Lebanese youth. That's when the proverbial hit the fan, as it should. Lifeguards are an Australian icon: they volunteer to sit watchfully over the beach and rush out to assist those who encounter trouble in the water. An attack on a lifeguard is a symbolic attack felt by anyone who has enjoyed a day at the beach; that is, millions of people. It seems this fellow had asked this group to stop playing soccer so close to other people as the flying sand was a nuisance. For his trouble, he got bashed. Later on, of course, and by a group of about four men. The cowardly way that Lebanese misfits always behave. (Notice I said Lebanese misfits; it's only the misfits I'm talking about, not other Lebanese people.) Drive by shootings, gang rapes, and generally antisocial group behaviour are the first thing that comes to most Sydney people's mind when you mention the words "young male Lebanese". It is not racist of me to point that out; it is based on a long list of abhorrent crimes committed in Sydney in very recent years, and on first and second hand experience of these people. Anyone who loves multiculturalism, as I do, must be on guard against people who will seek to destroy it and give a whole community a bad name through their vile actions.

"For heaven's sake! Will somebody just tell me what happened!? This man is a raving lunatic!"

Sorry... OK, so that lifeguard copped a cowardly beating last weekend, which was the last straw. For the first time, the tensions on Cronulla beach reached the media. (I certainly knew nothing of them previously, and haven't been anywhere near Cronulla for at least ten years.) People were obviously fuming in Cronulla, and some text messages got out, and were reported in the media, suggesting that a demonstration be held in Cronulla "on Sunday" (i.e. yesterday) in defiance of these unwanted elements on the beach. The message was couched in racist rhetoric, and every night of the week the TV news had a story about or related to "that message".

Well, come Sunday, come trouble. Thousands of local men (teens to thirtysomethings), and some supporters from near and far, congregated in a grassy area early in the day and settled in for a festive, boozy day. I don't know what the mood was like or what people's intentions might have been, but you can't have a fight without an opponent. They were probably expecting that a large group of Lebanese men might turn up en masse, but that didn't happen. Exactly what did happen, I've no idea, despite reading all the reports I could. But for whatever reason, a handful of Lebanese people, or people of similar appearance, did come within reach of the mob, and were set upon. These people didn't come as a group and I don't think they incited anything. They may even have been locals. The mob's behaviour was disgraceful: they bashed whoever they could get their hands on before police could rescue the victim(s) and shepherd them to safety. Ironically, "safety" was a hotel, probably the same hotel that had sold a whole palette of beer that morning.

Other harassment included chasing two women wearing headscarves. There was no physical harm, but how low can you get? It demonstrates loud and clear that no matter how righteous the anger felt over ethnic pests on the beach, this over-reaction was misguided and set a real low for behaviour in Australia. The mob's hunger was not sate, and they invaded the train station in the belief that further enemy combatants would be arriving. They found two men inside a train (i.e., not disembarking) and beat them up. All the while they were flying Australian flags, singing Waltzing Matilda, chanting racist slogans and displaying racist messages on clothing.

A demonstration against pests (whatever their race) became a race riot, and Australia hung its head in shame.

The violence was caused by a lot of factors: resentment, the lifeguard incident, alcohol, sun, more alchol, large numbers of people, and more alcohol. These factors will make for a nasty mob, but I believe it took one more thing to ignite the violence: neo-nazis. Some people made a long journey to be in Cronulla yesterday, and some of those journeymen were neo-nazis, as confirmed by the police today. I believe that they were the trigger that caused a mob to set upon innocent bystanders. The mob themselves would have gladly started violence if a large menacing Lebanese gang had turned up, but it's a bit beyond me to believe they would bash people who were not looking for trouble. Maybe I'm wrong; either way, I hope the police can identify people from the copious news footage and make some more arrests quick smart.

To finish the factual part of this story, Lebanese gangs retaliated later, and in different suburbs. They roamed other beachside suburbs nowhere near Cronulla with baseball bats, smashing the windows on at least 100 cars. Arrests were made. These actions were repeated tonight, and more arrests were made. There was no further violence or significant mob gatherings at Cronulla today, but police maintained a presence and will probably be preparing for another round somewhere, sometime.

I'll quickly address two reactions in the press. The SMH editorial was extremely well written. Here's an excerpt:

There is no excuse for such violence and such hatred. The failure they represent is profound. No side emerges with credit - not the crowds of braying Anglo-Celtic Australians, waving the national flag as they beat up bystanders because of the colour of their skin, not the Lebanese community, whose young men have such difficulty in understanding Australian social norms and finding a place in Australian society, not the State Government, which has routinely dismissed calls in the area for a better police effort to combat the casual depredations, boorishness and criminality of ethnic gangs.

... Australia has changed suddenly and inexplicably into a darker, nastier place, and the whole population is struggling to understand why.

The one thing I disagree with there is the suddenness of the change. The "casual depredations, boorishness and criminality of ethnic gangs" has been going on for at least five years, and are a failure of an otherwise successful Australian multiculturalism, a failure which came to a head yesterday. The change isn't sudden.

Failures in multiculturalism slip between the cracks of people's understanding of civil society. Society doesn't work if people aren't nice, or at least civil, to each other. When many cultural groups mingle, there's more opportunity for incivilities to occur, because society as a whole no longer has the same broad set of expectations of civil behaviour. Moreover, it's not logistically feasible for police to settle every minor dispute and, as I wrote earlier, some misfits will target these unpolicable gaps to create trouble for their own amusement.

One example of this trouble was reported in The Daily Telegraph:

A YOUNG woman this week told a TV camera crew of the intimidation she has experienced on Cronulla beach.

"They'll stand over you while you're sunbaking, block your sun so they get your attention, then say, 'She's not worth doing 55 years for'," she told them.

For those unsure of what these lowlifes are referring to, it's the length of the prison sentence which was given to Sydney's infamous gang rapist, Bilal Skaf.

Sickening. This behaviour is as bad as, or worse than, the non-physical harassment meted out to the two innocent women during Cronulla's day of infamy. Yet we hang our heads in shame over that one day, while this other behaviour goes on every weekend undeterred by police and barely reported even now.

Only when the everyday actions of antisocial Lebanese and white supremicists meet the full force of the law will Australian society be free to celebrate its multicultural success unreservedly.

Update. Tuesday's news has more detail about what happened when and where on the day. I won't bother going into it any further. One thing is clear, though: the retaliation by the Lebanese that night and last night is just as despicable as the riot itself. (It's not being reported that way, though; surprise, surprise...)

Drug Policy

The recent execution of Van Nguyen in Singapore for trafficking 396g of heroin leads me to think about drug policies and the conflict between zero-tolerance and harm minimisation. I'm inclined towards the latter myself, strongly influenced by The Economist's excellent series of articles in 2001 recommending total liberalisation of all drug laws. The summary: people should have the right to do whatever they like to themselves, and the costs of zero-tolerance drug policies on society are too high. Let's break it down a bit.

What's bad about drugs? It's not that obvious. Without pretending to know it all, here's my take: heroin destroys people through its strength and addictiveness; marijuana can have bad mental health effects even when used casually; I've no idea about cocaine; LSD and speed seem harmless in moderation; ecstasy seems fine except when the drug contains some impurities.

OK, so I'm only vaguely well-informed, but one thing seems pretty clear: the various illegal drugs have little in common in terms of their ill effects. Therefore, it seems like bad policy to cover them all with the same blanket ban. Knowing the disastrous effects of heroin only too well, I can hardly say with a straight face "let people inject it if they want", but that shouldn't preclude rational analysis, and I think there are damn good reasons for saying just that. On the other hand, thousands of people take ecstasy and other party drugs all the time with only occasional casualties that could be prevented if the drugs were legal. How? If people could buy ecstasy through legal avenues, it would be quality-controlled, thus eradicating the main cause of illness and death associated with the drug. Just today, I read in The Daily Telegraph about a group called "Enlighten" which stands outside rave parties and uses high-tech equipment to detect dodgy chemicals in drugs. A great idea, no? No; it's illegal. While I'm not suggesting the police should turn a blind eye to the law, such a deleterious outcome for people's safety should cause the law to be reviewed. All the quality control in the world will not change the fact that a tiny percentage of people are so allergic, if that's the term, to ecstasy, and presumably some other drugs, that the best quality product will still harm or kill them. Well, the same goes for peanuts. In an ecstasy-friendly society, at least people could seek medical advice, and the dangers could be discussed and researched openly.

Conclusion so far: ecstasy causes such a small amount of harm that it should be legalised so that it can cause even less harm. What about marijuana?

Dope was a popular drug among baby-boomers in the 60s and 70s, but the product widely consumed now is thought to be far stronger than it was back then, with concomitant dangers. Medical research seems to be crystallising around the opinion that wacky-backy causes such problems as schizophrenia and depression, even when not consumed in large quantities. This concurs with my observation. Such harm is obviously a concern, and so the consideration of the legalisation of marijuana can't easily proceed along the same carefree lines as ecstasy. That said, it's not obvious that marijuana is harmful to everybody who goes near it, so a zero-tolerance approach is not likely to be satisfactory. For instance, people with certain illnesses should be able to access its medicinal benefits.

Legalising marijuana would have one of the same implications as legalising ecstasy: it would enable quality control and invite further research into the impact of the drug on its users. The former benefit might help alleviate the problem of dangerously concentrated marijuana being smoked these days, by labelling the strength of the product, as with cigarettes. Of course, criminals could still distribute harder stuff, but their market would be greatly diminished as casual and regular users appreciate the convenience of the legally-available product.

I won't analyse speed and cocaine because I don't know much about their health impact, but it's reasonable to assume that they lie somewhere between marijuana and heroin in that respect. So we turn to heroin. As I stated earlier, it's not easy to defend the legalisation of this drug when you consider the tragic effect it has on people's lives through its strength of impact and addiction. However, there are clear potential benefits to legalisation, and these must be considered. Consider also that junkies are generally among the most desperate people in society, and therefore their health problems extend far beyond heroin use. If they didn't abuse heroin, they would surely abuse alcohol or other drugs, and another grisly end, or grisly existence, would substitute for overdose.

OK, the benefits of legalising heroin include the familiar quality control and research, but don't stop there. By distributing heroin to those who want or need it, the opportunity is there to provide counselling and offer rehabilitation. Most addicts, I'm sure, would want a way out of their addiction. They may have access to rehabilitation now, but that would leave them without any control: the doctors assisting them cannot prescribe heroin. Perhaps it's not necessary for rehab, but put yourself in the addict's place. Would you willingly rule out any further use of the drug you are so physically and psychologically dependent upon? How could you possibly take that first step? If heroin were legal, a range of possibilities become available. An addict could be administered a regular low-strength hit to maintain them while at the same time they are assisted in performing meaningful work or community service, not as a criminal but as a valued member of society. Even if this hit had to be administered every day for the rest of their lives, their situation is far better than before -- and now. However, as their self-esteem grows and their other psychological problems are managed, it's likely that they will be willing and eager to take the steps required to banish heroin from their lives. The point here is that a heroin addict has in all likelihood reached rock bottom in life and is signalling a cry for help. The notion that they are a criminal aiming to do damage to society is cruel and absurd.

Another compelling reason to legalise heroin is economics. So much crime is committed in its name, from burglaries to raise funds for a hit to gang warfare over distribution rights. Some of the nastiest and most ruthless people in the world are involved in the drug trade. It's the very illegality of drugs that causes all this. Because drug smuggling is illegal and faces very stiff penalties, it's risky. People who engage in risky activities do so only in expectation of a rich reward. The availability of such illicit reward motivates organised criminal activity of such calibre it seems impossible to police. Van Nguyen met his maker last week for attempting to smuggle nearly 400g of heroin through Singapore on to Australia. The ringleaders behind the operation couldn't care less about him and will find another desperate and/or greedy "mule" to carry their illicit load. Such riches are to be made in the drug trade that they will stop at nothing, even threatening to harm the mules' families if they don't go through with it. And the more we and other nations prosecute the "war on drugs", the more riches there are to be made.

Legalisation would undercut these vile acts by allowing supply to meet demand as the free market intended. The cost of drugs would fall, meaning desperate junkies wouldn't need to commit so much petty crime (theft, break & enter, prostitution) to fund their habit. The reward wouldn't be there for crime gangs. I'd expect that the level of crime in society would fall dramatically. Of course, with financial and legal obstacles to drug use lifted, one would expect such use to rise. Would we see a huge increase in heroin use? I doubt it: what's so attractive about it that those not currently desperate enough to flout the law would go near it? I expect that a small rise would occur, but that the strategies we're using to suppress heroin use are exacting too high a cost. If people really want to use it, let them, and provide the support for them to rehabilitate.

The other drugs have the same economic factors as heroin, just with different degrees of risk and reward. Their use probably would increase, but the ability to assure quality would reduce the harmful effects, and the ability to run genuine research and education programs would help people to make responsible decisions. After all, we allow people to decide how much alcohol they want to drink, and that we allow cigarette smoking at all is hypocritical in the face of tough laws on other drugs.

I've tried to analyse the costs and benefits of drug legalisation. The costs may be much greater than I suggest, and the benefits may be illusory. But the current drug laws are not good enough -- at the very least, there should be different laws for different drugs, rather than ludicrously treating them all as equals. Good law, care for the afflicted, common sense for the party goers, and the fight against organised and petty crime all demand that we consider these costs and benefits properly and openly.

Postscipt. I just came across this great quote from P.J. O'Rourke. His Parliament of Whores is one of my favourite books!

Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.

Australian Executed in Singapore

A 25-year-old Australian man best known as "Van Nguyen" (I think his full name was Nguyen Van Tuong) was executed for drug trafficking before dawn in Singapore today. There has been much sympathy expressed in Australia over the last few weeks, and a concerted campaign by his lawyers, Australian politicians, and the general public to appeal to the authoritarian Singapore government for clemency. It was all useless, as that government refused even to let his mother hug her son before he was executed. After a personal appeal from Australia's Prime Minister, they were allowed to hold hands through prison bars.

In contrast to the outpouring of sympathy and grief, there has been a sizable minority view published in newspapers that he doesn't deserve sympathy because the 400g of heroin he was carrying could have killed 26,000 people were he not caught. This is absurd; heroin deaths in Australia number in the low hundreds per year. There's also a common viewpoint, which I share, that while he deserves great sympathy, he doesn't deserve clemency because the penalty for his crime was well known to him before he decided to commit it. Sure, the punishment exceeds the crime, and I wish he could have somehow gained clemency, but Singapore far from alone in administering capital punishment. He's got noone but himself to blame. Coincidentally, on this very same day the United States executed its 1000th convicted criminal since it reintroduced capital punishment in the 1970s.

This tragic event is interesting because of the moral issues that can and should be considered. Before examining those, I make the following condemnations of Singapore. First, not allowing the mother proper physical contact is inhumane in the extreme. He was not a dangerous criminal and did not need to be kept in such isolation. This punishes the mother for no crime of her own. Second, hanging is barbaric for the condemned person and especially for the family. It's not guaranteed to be a quick or painless death, and it physically damages the victim's face. Having been denied a hug, the mother is now denied a dignified display of the body at his funeral as his face will be purple and his eyes will likely be damaged. Why can't they use lethal injection? Third, while not outright condemning capital punishment (it's not sufficiently different from life imprisonment for me to get excited about it), I condemn mandatory capital punishment. If such a penalty is to be applied, it deserves the fullest consideration of an independent judge. But Singapore is an authoritarian regime, which is condemnable in itself.

OK, some moral considerations. How can I support Singapore's decision to execute him while considering execution a disproportionate punishment? That's quite simple: Singapore, and some other Asian nations, go to great lengths to ensure that travellers know the consequences of being caught with drugs. They have the right to consider drugs an important social problem worthy of the greatest imposable punishment. Having set that expectation, it's quite fair that they follow through with it. So while I would request Singapore downgrade the penalty for drug trafficking, I don't blame them for applying whatever punishment they've advertised.

Does Van Nguyen deserve clemency for the peculiar facts of his case? No. He did the deed to raise money to pay his brother's debts. Big deal; try legal means instead. He cooperated with authorities by naming other drug runners. I doubt any major arrests have been made as a consequence; the important members of drug syndicates will have ensured they can't possibly be named. In short, he was a desparate young man rather than a hardened criminal. But... what about all the warnings he ignored? Everyone knows that taking drugs into Asia is extremely risky. He was, in effect, trying to profit from precisely that risk. With greater risk comes greater reward, so they say. Well, if the reward doesn't come off, you can't expect others to bail you out. Besides, I don't entirely buy the whole nice-guy thing. Of course his lawyers would paint that kind of picture; however, his twin brother is a twice-convicted drug smuggler, and he was obviously hanging with the wrong crowd if he could avail himself of a drug smuggling opportunity.

So what about some other issues? There have been some incredibly bad instances of moral reasoning presented. I'll quote some sentences and questions from merely one day's (today's) letters to the Sydney Morning Herald.

To all those deploring the execution of Nguyen Tuong Van, will your reaction be just the same if Saddam Hussein gets the chop? Why should it be? The crimes are different; so should be the perceived reasonable punishment. Another target of comparison is Amrozi, the "Bali Bomber" who conspired in the deaths of 202 people, including 88 Australians. I've often seen it written that Australia needs to take a tough stand on the death penalty all over the world, rather than turn a blind eye as Amrozi is sentenced to death. Yeah, consistency is good, but Australia (diplomatically) and Australians (personally) are quite entitled to be more interested in the death sentences of Australians than foreigners. We simply can't get emotionally involved in everyone's state-sanctioned murder around the world.

I wonder whether 47 per cent of the public would be supporting the execution and the Prime Minister doing nothing to stop it, if it were a blue-eyed, caucasian woman facing the gallows? This appalling comment refers to: (a) Schapelle Corby, who's rotting in an Indonesian jail for trafficking marijuana which she credibly claims was planted on her; and (b) a poll showing 47% of Australians supporting Van Nguyen's execution. The problems here are that Nguyen's and Corby's cases are incomparable except they involve drugs, that the poll may be misrepresentative, and that the Prime Minister has in fact done everything he can to try to prevent the hanging. That people can write such pathetic rhetorical statements staggers me. I say the poll may be misrepresentative because poll results always depend on exactly what was asked. The letter writer has not shown enough logical ability for me to assume that he's using the poll results justifiably.

OK, so I've only quoted two letters, but already we can see some issues that are opened up when people examine this emotive issue. Probably the worst of the lot, though, is Piers Ackerman who is paid to write for The Daily Telegraph, Sydney's trashier newspaper. He wrote that instead of a minute's silence for Van Nguyen (as had been suggested), we should throw a party. What an arsehole. While I felt Van Nguyen got what was (unfortunately) coming to him, I still felt the utmost sympathy for him, and a great deal of sadness when and after his death occurred.

I hate to contribute to the canonisation of a drug smuggler, but I can't resist it: Van Nguyen, RIP.