The public has had a long held fascination with detectives. Detective see a side of life the average persons never exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop. For twenty five of those years I was catching killers. That's what I did for a living. I was a homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated. The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some of the content and language might be confronting. That's because no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join me now as I take you into this world. Welcome to another episode of I Catch Killers. On I Catch Killers, we'd like to look at crime from all perspectives. As a cop, I tried fighting crime with a gun and handcuffs. Since leaving the police, I've found there are
other ways to fight crime. Today's guest looks at crime a bit differently, not just because of his beliefs, but because of the position he holds. See today's guest, Shane Rattenbury, is not only a politician, he also holds a position of significant power as the Act's attorney General. For those that don't know the role of an attorney general, it could be said the Attorney General is the highest law
officer in the state. That position comes with immense responsibilities and powers, and today we're going to look at fighting crime from an interesting perspective. Shane is an interesting character and is true to his beliefs, as demonstrated in his activities as a green Peace activist. He has some amazing stories from those times. Today we're going to find out who Shane Rattenbury is and get his thoughts on a whole range of things, including how he thinks is the
best way to fight crime. Shane Rattenbury, Welcome to I Catch Killers.
Thanks very much, Gary.
Now, I know you're a very busy man. We've been trying to a schedule a time for you to come on, so thanks for making the time.
It's great to join you.
Well, as a role of an attorney general, I would imagine that's a pressure position.
It certainly is, and your description of it has sort of been the first law officer of the jurisdiction is exactly right. It means you've got responsibility for the court's legal policy, the direction of the criminal justice system, but also civil things, so we deal with defamation and all those sort of civil sides of the law as well.
And you've got the background in law.
Yes, I did my law degree at a and you quite some years ago now never went on too practice law. I actually then took my law skills into other places. But it's great to end up backing this role where you have an opportunity to think through how do we make the law better for people?
Yeah. Yeah, Well, it gives you that perspective on how you can change and make a difference. And that's what we're going to have a deep dive into today's chat because some of the things that you're looking at in terms of let's call law reform or just better ways of fighting crime. I'm passionate about that. Since I've left the I'm thinking, well, I thought that I was doing some good as a police officer, but there's a lot that can be doe outside of that realm.
Yeah, indeed, And look, you know, the police play a fantastic role and I really admire the work they do because they every time they turn up somewhere they're usually meeting people on the worst day of their lives. Very much how I think about it, and I've seen that in action. What we need to do is make sure that the police are focused on the things that we
really need police for. But so much crime is oriented around poverty, disadvantage, mental health issues, drug and health issues, drugging, alcohol issues, I should say, and we need to make sure that we have a different response to those issues. That's very much how I think about it.
Yeah, there's definitely a school of thought that the prevention is better than cure. And I, even as a police officer for thirty four years, I was always concerned when we're going to solve a problem through arrests, like, Okay, this is a problem where we're going to raise the stakes high, We're going to bring in mandatory sentence, whatever.
One thing that in the documentation I've been going through in preparation for this that I really like because it's been a pet hate of mind throughout my police career that come election time, quite often the platform is law and order and the response is, let's crack down on crime. We're going to make legislation tougher, We're going to put longer sentencing, that type of thing, and I always thought we miss the point, but that was what was often portrayed when there was a law and order issue in
discussion leading up to an election. Quite often the response to that, Okay, we're going to get tough on law. From my perspective, I don't think that always works. Would you share that.
It is a really common thing to see in election campaigns. We've just seen it in the Northern Territory election a couple of weeks and the new Chief Minister, her pitch was the first meeting I'll have after becoming Chief Minister is to go and see the Police Commissioner. We're seeing it come through in the Queensland election which is due later this year. We're in an election cycle in the Act
at the moment, we're also seeing it there. It is really common and it's a simple and appealing answer, but it's not getting We're right across the country we are seeing prison populations go up. People don't feel any safer. But when you look at the Justice Reinvestment Agenda, which is saying that I'm really focused on, you are starting to see and we've got some great examples which I'm sure we'll get a chance to get into where it is starting to reduce crime. People have had long lives
of criminal history are getting better. You know, they're going on better tracks. It makes our whole community safer if we can make this investment. I talk about it as building communities, not prisons.
Yeah, well, I'm all for it. The trouble is to sell that, Like I speak to people on the street, and they know as an ex cop and a crime will happen, they are this person should be put away forever. That type of narrative, And so I can see how it's easy leading into an election if you want the popular vote to let's just get tough on crime.
But the alternative story is more complex, and so it's also harder when you're trying to tell a story and you know, fifteen second media grabs or a back and forth interview on radio where you've got six or seven minutes, it's hard to tell a more complex story. And so the simpler story works in that political context.
Here, the journey I've been on, it's been a journey in the four or five years i've been out of the police. One thing that and I see him as somewhat as a mentor and people would have heard me reference him before is a man that had his son killed in a murder. It was a shocking murder, and that beats a arm robbery. Working there to pay his way through UNI and someone's coming and killed his son, shod his son. He talks about getting tough on crime, and when that happened, he reacted the way that you
would expect someone to react. There was outrage, he wanted to get revenge, all the type of feelings that you'd come with having a loved one killing those circumstances. But he's of a view and I still the quote that we don't need to get tough on crime, we need to get smart on crime, and if we can reduce crime, we reduce victims. And it's a simple narrative, but whenever I have a discussion with someone, yeah, but if there's less crime, there's less victims. Isn't that where we should be heading.
Absolutely, it's all about making our community safe. Now that grief is so understandable, horrible things happen to people, and particularly the lose child I think is one of the worst things that can happen to people. Because there's that saying, you know, you should never bury your own child. It takes a lot of courage to be able to overcome that, and I have absolute admiration. Now, there are some people
simply need to go to jail. There are people who are genuinely dangerous to the community and they need to spend time in custody to keep the rest of the community safe. But so many people I spend eight years as corrections minutes. So there are so many people in these systems who are therefore reasons that are related to poverty, disadvantage, the way they grow up, mental health problems, all of these things. We can do so much better by putting them on a different track.
Well, putting them on the different track. And that's very much what Ken Marslow dedicated a large portion of his life too, with an organization Enough is enough and he would go in the prisons and help where he could. But yeah, I find that type of focus on the way of fighting crime something that's productive and something that everyone everyone benefits from. Before we get into talking about how we're going to fight crime and reduce crime and make the well the better place, let's find out a
little bit about yourself. Tell us you're sorry.
Oh look, I grew up in a small country town, Bateman's Bay, on the south coast of It is great, it's grown a bit since I left. I then won a scholarship to go to school up in Canberra. My mom was a single parent household. My mom took my sister and I up to camera think it will be better opportunity for the whole family, and she was right.
You know.
I got a great schooling and then first in family to go to university, so that was really a big thing as well. But you know, I grew up in public housing, so I sort of look at my life
over very fortunate. Even though I grew up in a single parent household, we had good family around us, you know, because I see a of the people that come into our criminal justice system and they've grown up without that support, without the encouragement, And I reflect on that a lot in my own good fortune really that I did have people around me who sort of saw how to put
a good life together. They encourage us into sport and cubs and those kind of community activities that really make a difference in your life.
Yeah, it's amazing that having one good person or that love and nurturing that can point lives in the right direction. You're somewhat of an activist, which I like it and I want to dig into that because I think it's fascinating the stuff that you did with Greenpeace. But when did you become an environmentalist? Was that the young age? What was it that drew you to that?
Yeah? Relatively young. I sort of described myself as a child of the eighties. There was some big environmental issues around me. Had the hole in the ozone layer, there was the fight to protect the Antarctica from mining, big logging, conversations in Australia about protecting the forests, and that was just that age I was sort of starting I think about the world and it made a big impression on me. And you know, I got involved with some environmental groups
when I was at university. The Green Party formed around that time, and Bob Brown, as the leader of the party, was a real role model and inspiration to me. And so I just got more and more involved and I guess found my place.
Yeah, with Bob Brown. Is it just my recollection? But isn't there a classic failure of him on the surfboard in the harbor with a ship coming in?
No, that's Ian Cohen was also involved in the early days of the Greens. But Bob's from tazzy Ian's from up here in.
Sydney, damning the Franklin's Yeah, okay, yeah, but yeah, it was a sign of the times.
And I was really inspired by that notion of peaceful activism. Yes, you know, it is a break in the law at times, but in a way that's not about it's about crime as such that there's not victims. It's a different type. It's the civil disobedience and very much that Gandhi sort of notion of putting yourself there to make a difference without harming others, and that nonviolent part of it's always been so important for me as an activist.
I wasn't involved in a lot of from the policing point of view with protests, but I know that some people where there was logging or mining protests and all that there was a good relationship with the police because it wasn't a violent protest and there would be a bit of laughter and they'd end up playing cricket together or whatever. That was still achieving the goals, but it wasn't violent.
Now, absolutely, I've had some terrific relationships with police over the years. Because I had a law degree by the time I started doing stuff with Greenpeace, I was often the one that was sort of designated to talk to the police and work through the issues and by help people out at the other end. You know, It's some fun times and sort of talking to the police about all right, how are we going to work this out? And they got a job to do. We totally respect
that they shouldn't face violence in their workplace. Now I know they do, but in that kind of context, yeah, I think they do appreciate it. You sort of sit there saying, look, we're not here to give you guys a hard time. We're just here to do this. Yeah, and this is our plan, you know. And ultimately they ended up having to arrest people at times, but even those people went away peacefully and so it didn't present a of a personal safety risk to the police.
Yeah, well, what's for currency, what's going on down in Melbourne? That's ugly all round, isn't it? With the protests down there and not the nature of protesting. Respect people's rights to protest, but it just it seems to be escalating on both sides, and it's never nice to see.
Yeah, I don't like to see that sort of stuff. I think there's a way to make your point without we see people throwing bottles and bricks at police. There's no place so that the police don't deserve to have that when they go to work.
Yeah, yeah, no, I agree, and that it's unfortunate when that happens. But with your involvement in Greenpeace, it wasn't just a fleeting uni radical get involved. You're right in you had positions in their held positions.
I was lucky enough it became my job and I worked here in Australia for a number of years and then went overseas and actually went to lead Greenfiace's Global Oceans campaigning out of Amsterdam, which is where the international headquarters is, including a trip to Antarctica taking on the Japanese whaling fleet.
Tell us about that, because that was fairly intense, was rammed and.
Yeah, yeah, it was a pretty full on time. So we took two ships and about sixty crew helicopter and headed off into the Southern Ocean to try and find the Japanese whaling fleet. Now that's the hardest part. It's actually fine, they don't want to be found, but That was a year that Japan announced that we're going to start taking hump back in fin whales, which at that point that was still both endangered species, and we just couldn't stand by and let that happen, so we sailed
out of Cape Town. Turns out I get really seasick, so it was a pretty tough trip for me.
It's not fun, is it. No.
You're heading across the Roaring forties and fifties to get down to Antarctica, big oceans, and I was on an ice breaking vessel. I've got a rounded hule, so they blob around in the ocean. So I lost a bit of weight heating down there. And this is a visual not a visual meeting. Your listeners can't see me. But you know, I got a background in sort of running.
And I've got a lot of weight to lose.
I didn't thought I lost some weight down there just because I couldn't keep the food down. But look, once you get down there, we found the Japanese whaling fleet and we undertook a lot of that direct action, nonviolent, but you know, getting in those small inflatable boats, putting ourselves between the whale and the hardpurn it's pretty wild time you're down there. The water's freezing cold. It's only one or two degree.
It can't last too long if you fall in.
I mean it's the high of summer, so it's twenty four hours a daylight, but it's not warm, and you've got ice floating around in the water, small icebergs. There's whales. There's a guy with a grenade tipped harpoun pointed directly at you.
It got fairly willing at stages because they're water cannons and all sorts of stuff. Did you get a rested?
All?
Did? Well?
There's no police. You're on the highest seas. There is literally no law. It is the wild West out on.
The ocean, and so this is your time playing pirates.
Yeah, it's just us versus them down there, and you know the rules really are I mean, there are rules of shipping, you know how to safely interact at sea. But obviously we're then we're trying to give them a hard time. We're trying to interfere and stop them catching the whales. Most of our putting our own bodies on the line and just being in the way and bearing witness to that as well.
When you were down positioning yourself between the the whaling ships and the whale you were putting. I was watching that. There was fairly risky stuff. How did you feel.
Yeah, you sort of do all this training, you think about what it's going to be like. But I never forget the first moment. I was standing on this small rubber boat in the middle of Antartia and there's we're going around at eighteen knights, there's ice, there's a whale just in front of us, and there's a guy putting this grenade tip tarpoon at and I looked up and thought, how did I get here? And am I going to
survive this? Now we did, and you then just click into all the training mode and the adrenaline takes over and you're in the moment. But yeah, there was certain a moment I thought, oh, And the other moment was we did have an incident down there where we crashed in Japanese whaling ship crashed into us. I was on a small boat fifty meters long, so eight hundred times, and there's eight thousand Japanese factory vessel crashed into us. And at that moment I said and thought.
Oh, oh, that would have made a hell of a noise.
The noise was unbelievable, just the crunching of metal on metal, and I just had anything, this ship's going to turtle over, and we're in the fridge of waters of Antarctica, and we are in life here anyway, we obviously got away to live to tell the tale. But yeah, there are moments down there where you're thinking, oh.
And the people that you're with in Greenpeace very much light minded people.
Oh. Absolutely. We had a crew of eighteen on my ship. Now, eighteen different nationalities.
I should say, Okay, that's interesting, and.
We spent a Christmas down there. It was actually fantastic. So we had a you know, in the quieter moments, you know, we sort of shared all our different cultures and people came to things with really different perspective, but ultimately with a real conviction for making the planet better.
Yeah. Oh, well done, because someone had to speak up. But yeah, putting yourself between the harpourn and the whale in the Antarctic a little bit risky.
I'd sort of seen that earlier in my life and thought, wow, that's a gutsy thing to do, so defind myself in that circumstance was a bit of a moment in life, you think, oh yeah, here I go. Part of it was actually also telling the story. There had not been video footage of this sort of whale hunting process, and we had cameras on board, professional photographers and the like.
So part of it is your two thousand kilometers south of Australia at the end of the Earth, and part of is capturing the pictures to tell the stories so that people back home could say, actually, we don't agree with this, we wanted to stop.
Well, that's what it really came across. From those images, the brutality of it, and the whales and the heartburns and seeing them dragged up and cut up and different things pretty gross. Besides that, what was it like down there just from the environment looking at it must be an experience within itself.
It's an incredible part of the world. I mean, the beauty of the icebergs, twenty four hours of daylight, penguins, pods of orcas swinging past, seeing the whales, all the birds you get, all the albatris and the birds that live in those parts of the world. It's an incredible part of the planet, largely untouched by humans, but I've actually been back last year on a climate change expedition, right, okay, and we're doing that. We were looking at the impact
of climate change, but even plastics. We did a trawl for plastics in the water and finding plastics at that far end of the ocean. Got that far, small pieces, small fragments, but the circulation of the world's oceans means that as humans we have polluted every corner of this planet.
Yeah, that drifts down there. Okay. How long were you involved with green Peace?
About ten years okay here in Australia, as I said, and then I did six months in Bangkok in Southeast Asia where Greenpeace was establishing a presence.
What sort of the issues were you dealing with in Southeast Asia?
It was a lot about ocean pollution, industrial pollution, chemical outfalls countries like Thailand, the Philippines and like where. It wasn't the level of environmental protections, environmental rules and regulation that we would have in Australia now. So it was really for me coming from Australia and going to that role it was a bit of a step back in time.
There were things being done that it had been outlawed in Australia many years earlier, and I was really pleased to go there for a period as and experienced activists, to work with activists from Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia on ways you could campaign and ways you could expose these stories and help change things and lobby governments for better laws.
Where do you think this came from your drive, your passion?
Yeah, I don't know, in the sense there were no other activists in the family. We were not a political family at all.
Right, So it wasn't your mum whipping it into you right from the start.
I think it was just that thing of being a child of the eighties and these things were coming on to TV and organizations like Greenpeace. We're getting out there telling these stories, and I thought that's the way I can make a difference in the world.
Okay, And looking back at your ten years, you're proud of what you achieved.
Absolutely, you know, we made a real difference in a range of different areas. You know, Green Piece has got a proud history, controversial organization at times, and not everybody's cup of tea. I understand that, but that commitment to nonviolence has always been such an important part of it. Whilst it's been controversial, green Peace has done things that
not everyone's agreed with. They've also shifted the dial and there's a lot of environmental wins around the planet that result from that, people being willing to get in and have a go.
Well, I think without sometimes things that you've got to fight for and fight for it in that way to draw attention to it necessary because otherwise it's very easy just to sweep it under the carpet and someone else's problem.
Yeah, and there's lots of people around the world who can point to some of those images that Green Pieces generated. You brought up they one of me and Cohen surfing on the bow That wasn't a Green Piece one. But the thinking in Green Piece was pictures tell a thousand words, and so creating those powerful images, bringing those images of whaling back from the Southern Ocean. People get those images, they leave an emotional impact on them and that's how you get change as well.
Okay, all right, after the time in Greenpeace, what did you think you were going to do? Where was your life heading?
Look, I was loving my job in greencaus I was sitting in Amsterdam doing the work. But I had been involved in the Greens back in Australia before I'd gone away and I got a call from some friends back home. He said, look, there's an election coming up. You consider going for pre selection and running for it. And I thought it was kind of I'd been away a while as overseas, you missed the family, you missed Australia. It
felt like about the right time to come home. So I took up that opportunity, came back, literally flew in and started election campaigning and I was fortunate enough to get elected at that go in two thousand and eight.
It's okay, what seat? And it was a local seat in.
Camera, right in the heart of Camera, so the central bits of the city, an area that I called home.
I asked people, listen and think, I know quite a few politicians and David Tchubridge is a good friend of mine. That you know David upmost respect for him. I think he changed my thinking on politicians. I've known him for probably fifteen or so years, and passionate person that fights for the right things, and very impressed by the way he goes about his business. But to put yourself up
as a politician, I would imagine it's quite confronting. It's almost like at school, Am I going to be the popular kid?
Like you?
Really? Hey, look at me? Do you like me or don't like me? I would imagine you felt vulnerable.
It's a really great observation. And for me it was a real change because going from Greenpeace, you were there sort of you know, I did media week for Greenpeace, but it was about the organization and about the issues. When you go into politics, you're right, it's actually about you personally. For me, it's still about the policies and where the party stands and those kind of things, but it is the way it's talked about. It is much more about you, and you get voted for and city.
It almost gets harder once you've been elected the first time because then you come up for a re election and you're reapplying for your job in this really public way, and if you lose, you know, you sort of get sacked pretty publicly.
Well it's brutal, isn't it. If the payment's the way politics plays out. If you make a mistake, you're going to get crucified and it's going to be public and you're going to get humiliated. And well, we've all seen so many politicians have the fall on this ord or be caught up in something.
So now we all make mistakes. You know, in any career job, there's things you're going to probably look back later and think, I wish I'd done that differently one hundred And you get that feedback usually from your boss in a one on one meeting in the room. In politics, it's on the front page of the paper the next day if you know, you don't give a great quote, or you misjudge something and it does happen, or.
You in a conference where you haven't got the facts in your head or whatever, and people get crucified for that. And I think we're hard task masters, but I suppose that comes with putting your hand up there going I want to be a politician.
And on the flip side, it is a fantastic job. I do love it. You know, you have this and it's a real privilege to be in a role this, particularly once you become a minister and have that particular set of opportunities. But you have a chance to get up there and shape community perspectives, make an argument, and
for me, I still feel like an activist. You know, people often say, oh, what's the difference between the role I haading Greenpeace and be in politics, and I still feel it's very similar in the sense that you're out there trying to make an argument for a different pathway forward, to convince people there is a good way to do this, and so it's like that, and it's a privilege to have that kind of a role.
You can make a difference. So I think if you can hang on to that feeling, that's a privilege and the noma that would have to serve you well.
Yeah, and certainly in act politics it's a bit different to say, federal politics. We have to go away all the time. We're in our community every day and it's a smallish place. We don't travel much, you know, come up to city. It's kind of a day out for me to come and record the podcast. But it keeps you very grounded as well. As you're in your community, just out getting your groceries and someone will come up to you and say, hey, Shane, you know.
What about this about that local member as well?
Yeah, so how.
Long have you been in politics now for I've actually just come out for the end of my fourth term for sixteen years, okay, so that's a long. It wasn't what I said out for.
Yeah, you know, you just sort of find yourself there and there's still things to keep doing and I've still got the energy for it. And as I said earlier, we come up to an election soon and as part of that, you've got to go through the pre selection process in the party, and that's the time to sit down and think, have I still got it? Do I still want to do this? Because it is a hard job.
It's a constant job. It's NonStop pressure, non stop scrutiny, and so you've still got to have a passion for it or you've got to get out.
Yeah, And I think were the pressure and the scrutiny that you've got to be on your game. If you're not, you probably shouldn't be there too. I think if you're there for an honorable reason, if you're tied or you're just going through the motions, you're not giving justice to the people you're there to there to serve.
I think that's exactly right, and you've got to be honest with yourself about that. And I sat down and did that last year, sat down and thought, right, I've been here a while, have I got it? In me, and the obviously came out the other side is yes, so I'm having one more go.
Okay, Now I understand that I felt the same when I was in as a homicide detective. If I got to a point where I thought I can't give it one hundred percent, it would have been time to step away.
So, well, that's not a job where you can be half hearted of it.
Well always said to people when I came in. It was told to me and when people came in under me, that that's not a nine to five job. If you're going to call yourself a homicide detective, if you're going to have to sign up and you're going to have to make sacrifices, I would imagine that's very similar to the role as a politician.
Yeah, I sort of look at it now. We're having done it for a while and you do lose contact with friends. You just don't have the time to catch up. And that's not anybody's fault. It's just you know, the job gets in the way, and if you're passionate and committed to it, it does. You know, it takes your time and your energy.
You can do what I did after I left the place, I went round the family and friends and apologize. I've just been busy for the past twenty or say years.
But do they accept it?
Some did, some did them. I'm working towards the ones that ones that didn't. So with crime, I'm fascinated by some of the things that you're focusing on and the way to way the fight crime. Just your background in politics. You're the Attorney General. Now we've talked about that, but you also held some portfolios that gave you a good understanding of the world of crime.
Yeah. I first became a minister back in twenty twelve and they handed me the Corrections Portfolio. I had no background. I had the law degree, but I've not been a criminal lawyer and anything. My world had been environmental activism, a bit of interaction with the justice system, as we touched on, you know, bailing out activists, paying their fines, negotiating bail, but pretty in the grand scheme of a
criminal justice system. Lightweight stuff. But I found myself with the Corrections portfolio and that was an absolute eye opener for me. It's not a popular portfolio. It's a tough portfolio in terms of there's not much good news comes out of corrections. But it's actually an amazing portfolio because if you get it right again, you make a real difference.
And so I really got the bug for it. I did a four year term as Corrections Minister and you come around and the next election there's a bit of a reshuffle and they're like, what portfolio is do you want? I said, I'll keep corrections, and I think there's a bit of surprise at that. But it's an important portfolio.
It's very important, but it's one that you're quite right. There's not a lot of positive stuff comes out of it. The only time you hear corrective services generally in the media or people are talking about when something's gone wrong.
Yeah, death in custody, are riot, someone escapes, these sort of things. Yeah, that is generally what you see in the press. But like the police, I reckon there's a lot of people in corrections who go in there because they think they can make a difference. They go in there. A lot of it's with heart, actually, and I don't think that's a common perception of corrections, but I've met a lot of corrections officers who say I'm here because I think I can help people out.
Look, I was guilty of looking at corrections when I was a police officer and we'd spend a lot of time in jail, but just thinking okay, corrective services officers. But since stepping away from the police and spending time in jail and spending time with corrective services officers, I'm amazed.
I shouldn't say amazed, it's just I've become aware of how passionate they are about making a difference, because I think the public perception that we see on films or they walk around with a bat and just dragging a long the along the cell doors with a big set of keys hanging off, but it's so far different when they're inside.
And it's a tough role as well. I mean, there are people in jail who use violence to resolve the spits because that's how they've learned to survive in the world, and the corrections officers are at risk of that violence. But there's also so much they can do. And as we've talked about earlier, so many people in jail are there they don't want to be there, and I've spent time chatting and prisons as well. Most of them just want to get home to their families. They want to
see their mum. They feel they've brought shame on the family. So there's a lot of people in jail who have really interesting perspectives on life in a way that, again the community wouldn't understand through this sort of the stereotype of thinking about who's in jail, what it's like, that sort of thing. Most of the time, a lot of guys in jail and the ladies are just bored and they just want to get out.
That's I look. I agree with what you're saying, and from a police officer's point of view, I'm thinking I didn't really care what happened to them when they went into jail. It wasn't my concern. I was just looking what's our next case. But having spent time in there, I'm not sure if you're aware, but I did a podcast series called Breaking Badness where Corrective Services invited me into a maximum security prison and I found a fascinating experience.
I spent a couple of weeks in there and speaking to speaking to some of the inmates and what their stories were, and I'm thinking we could really make a difference and what they're doing there, and we might touch on it a little bit later about the way prisoners
have been treated so they can integrate better into society. So, talking in a general sense what we touched on about the election promises cracked down on crime and all that, what's your overall view on the way we should approach approach crime and law and order.
In the big picture, anyone who goes to just mostly going to come out again. And so if we want to make our community safer, we need to take that opportunity to intervene either while they're in custody ideally before they ever get there. As I've touched on a lot, so much crime comes from poverty and disadvantage and the like. Use that phrase before a building communities, not prisons. So if you think about the history of what's done as justice reinvest it came out of the US, out of
Texas and out of all places. And I think this surprises a lot of people, and out of the conservative side of politics, and it came from actually economic rationalism, the idea that jails are really expensive places to run. The criminal justice system costs a lot of money to run. And what we see is and you'll have seen this in your police create and our police in Canberra complain about this all the time. They're just they're arresting the
same people time after time. People are just cycling through the system. They're not getting the rehabilitation, they're not getting the support to put their lives back on track, and so you continue to just keep getting victims, as we touched on earlier, and so if we can break that cycle, we make better lives for the people who are in custody if people are in the system, and we make our community safer, and that's better for all of us, and it's more cost effective.
It does seem like a no brainer when you put it down there, but it's just got to get the public, I think, changing their thoughts on crime, because our instinct with crime is Okay, that happens, we'll lock them up for away the key, but it doesn't necessarily create a good environment.
And you know, if you go to the law, there's a range of stated outcomes or stated reasons for having sentencing, and that includes punishment deterrence, but it's also about rehabilitation, about holding people to account. I guess the view I take is there's lots of ways to hold people account for and some of the alternative options we've put in place in the Act, which reckon we'll get into in
a minute. They're not soft options the whole people accountable, but they're pretty grueling to go through.
Yeah, but just a different, different way of approaching it. I'm just looking at some of the notes I've made here that we don't if we can prevent people from offending in the first places, that would be the perfect world if we could do that. Obviously, we can't achieve that.
Achieve that all the time. You've talked on some of the crimes, the lesser crimes, the way that we deal with deal with people and they're on the wrong path and they end up in jail, and that the recidivism that we have not just in this state but in every state, like across the country, it's ridiculous. What about the diversionary programs? Can we talk about that?
Yeah, it'd be great to look and you talk about avoiding it in the first place. One of the changes we've just made in the Act is to raise the age. There's this thing called the minimum age of criminal responsibility and across most of Australia it's ten years old. And that idea is that that's the age of which you
can be held responsible for your criminal acts. The evidence is, of course, that kids don't have the thinking that developed, ways of critically analyzing the world to really understand the consequences of their crime, and and age like that. So we've just raised the age in the Act to twelve, and next year it will go to fourteen. Now that's not just about saying you can't get in trouble, because we know that young kids will do things that are
harmful to themselves and to others. But instead of them going into jail and starting that life in the system and then media up with other people who are like that, they'll instead be averted into programs that address their needs. Now that could be drug and alcohol issues, it could be the fact that they're just homeless and they're stealing
to survive. All of them are different, they've got different needs, But the clear intent is that they will be helld accountable, but they'll also be given the support to make sure they don't keep going down that path. So it is actually about starting right at the beginning. When you think about something like kids and their early interactions, you know, I've met these kids and I've heard the stories. Are the ones who are in jail and they've grown up
in households where no one's ever had a job. They're not encouraged to go to school. They just sit around the couch. Their parents are taking drugs all the time. And what sort of role modeling is that these kids have got no chance?
Yeah, and like you look at you hear lives like that and think, well, how will they how are they meant to turn out like yourself? Myself, we had people that cared for you, poiled in the right direction, and if you didn't have that. So it's an interesting concept like raising the age for been liable for a criminal offense, because.
The alternative is if that you could be sent to jail in Australia as young as eleven years old, going to juvi. You know, if you're in juv at eleven, you know it's mostly the kids that are a little bit older twelve and thirteen where you really start to see the trouble. But you know, the northern territories also raise their age of criminal responsibility. But then your governments
come into actually we're going to push it back. I just don't kids if they get into the system at that age, they're just going to get institutionalized, they're hanging out with other people who are in the same circles, and the cycle is going to build.
I've had too many people on here that have gone down the criminal path and talk about when they went into the juvenile system that virtually marked their cards. It was absolutely okay, this is a path I'm going on, and it was almost in that environment you've got credit for being the worst kid in the system.
The stories we hear from these kids.
Yeah, yeah, so we break that. What about with drug and alcohol the courts specifically set up for those type of things, because we had a recent guest on them talking about he was hooked on heroin for twenty years or whatever, and he's now working on the thing that it's not about treating the drug addiction. That's about treating what drove people to drugs. And I think from a policing point of view, we'd go lock up the same people and you always knew it was drug related or
alcohol could play the factory in it. How do you see that working? Changing the focus that let's treat the problem your addiction to drugs. We've got to work that out otherwise you're going to keep coming back to court. So what's your thoughts there.
The Drug and alcohol courts are a really powerful model. Now we've brought one in relatively recently compared to some other jurisdictions, but the results are they're really life changing. I went and saw one in New Zealand to see what it was like the first time. I was over there for a Corrections Minister's conference and I went and checked out the call while I was there, and the
judge it was a lady. She was a fantastic mix of frightening school teacher and caring auntie okay, and the way she run a court and the way the premise of the drug and alcohol courts is you get support when you're going well, but if you fall off the wagon, you get pulled into line and you get held accountable. And our one in the act, the judge there happens have been a mail. He's done to play that same
sort of role of pushing both sides of it. And we've just done some evaluations of it and the results have been fantastic. We've now had thirty three people graduate through the program. So basically, you're going to be sentenced to jail and instead you get sent into this stream in the Drug and Alcohol Court. You're back out in the community, but it's intensive. You've got to go to court once or twice a week to check in with
the judge. You're getting urine testing pretty regularly. You've got to do other courses that sort of go to why you're involved in the system. Of the thirty three people that have been that are graduated so far, not one of them is reoffended. And the sort of people we're talking about it ones that have been in and out of the system for fifteen years. They've gone in and out of jail, they come out, they maybe get out for three months or six months, and then they offend and they go back again.
So just breaking it down, shame with that court because the figures quite interesting if you're having the success rate like that. So you've got the local offender the drugs. Of course, he breaks into places or stole something because he's addicted or she's addicted to a drug. Okay, you charge with the offense. You go before the drug court. Explain the steps from there.
Well, first of all, you actually go before the regular court, magistrate or Supreme Court. You're in there, you've been sentenced. You're going to get two, three, four years, but you're given the option to go into the drug and alcohol court. They have to choose.
Okay, so that's not compulsory that they've got to go.
To jails if I want to. But obviously this looks like a more attractive option, you know, some of the people looking and go that's a bit of a soft option. You get to hang out in the community instead of going to jail and just have to turn up to court. But as I said, it is really intensive. There's high expectations placed on people. There's a series of service providers that so you go into the drug and alcohol court, you get assisted. We've got health staff working there, we've
got social services staff working there. Average on Torres rail on the support services because obviously there's the over representation of our first nation's community. And you then get prescribed as sort of activities you have to be involved in.
Yeah, and how long does the how long do they stay on the program.
It can vary a little bit, but it's sort of a twelve to eighty month timeframe is roughly it. And even those who haven't graduated, you know, they finish up because their sentence runs out or for various reasons they don't finalize the program. Even in that cohort, we've seen a sort of eighty to ninety percent rate of not reoffending.
And is the not reoffending because you've taken drugs out of the mix their addiction. You've dealt with the addiction pretty much, and they were offending because of their addiction, and it was like a cat chasing its tale.
Yep, that's exactly it. But the other benefits that come out of us are so powerful. The breaking an addiction there, stopping the offending, but then stories of people being reunited with their children because they're now they're clean, they're getting a life, they're getting jobs. We had one fella spoken an event recently, had been through the court and he talked about going getting himself some education, getting that reunification with partners and kids, really stuff that matters.
In our lives. There's a lot to be said about the need for people that have been taken out of the society, whether they're in prison or they're on the verge of going to prison, having that connection with community, having that connection with their families.
Yeah, there's a risk of people being ostracized because they've been in jail because they've committed a crime, and the only people that will associate with them other people who've been in jail, and they're not pro social influencers. They're not people that say, Hey, come to this party with me and do some drugs, or come and help me knock over this servo or whatever the story is. Whereas if you reconnect with family friends, you're able to get
a job. You know, that's probably the ultimate success is actually getting re employed. But all those influencers, they're the things that keep you on track.
Yeah, yeah, and gives you a sense of self worth too. I've seen people that turned their life around and they walk differently, they walk with pride. Then they're not slinking around them that they have that sense of self worth. What about restorative justice? Yeah, thoughts on that because I'm really fascinated by.
This is such an interesting area of justice for people who don't know about it. The idea of restorative justice is essentially making peace, and again it's definitely not a
soft option. The way it operates in the acts, you have the offender, you have the victim, and through a supported process, they have facilitators who run it and there's a lot of preparatory workers in you don't just check them in a room together, but ultimately you get them in a room together and the offender has to sit and speak with the victim, and the victim talks about the impact that crime had on them, how it's left them feeling unsafe at night in the dark, the sense
of violation from having someone break into their house, whatever the circumstances are. The victim will talk about the impact that's had on them, and the perpetrator has to sit and confront that, and it is a powerful thing. Out the other side, the intent is the victim the perpetrator
takes responsibility for what they've done. The intent is they apologize, and there's a reparations process where the victim can then talk about what they want the perpetrator to do that would leave the victim feeling like the perpetrator had taken responsibility.
Yeah, have you seen examples of that.
I've never been in a conference. I've spoken to a lot of the facilitators and I've spoken to people who've been through the process. They find it. Victims of crime find it really empowering because one of the things that being a victim of crime is it takes away your sense of agency. Someone's done something to you that you couldn't control, and so many victims they're out the other side, that's what most impacts them, and this is a way of giving agency back. It's a way of finding peace
out of it. And again in the surveying we've done, if people who've been through it, we sort of get this ninety eight ninety nine percent satisfaction rate. And it sounds too good to be true. Now. I say that because often there are entering into this process and it doesn't always work. If the perpetrator is not prepared to take responsibility, they won't be put in the room with a victim because that could just make it worse again.
But that ability to sit down with somebody and make peace come out the other side in the sense of them understanding what they did to you, you understanding perhaps why they did it, and they're making that active apology and doing other reparations is well.
It potentially helps a victim too. Absolutely, Like I've seen victims that their lives have been destroyed because of the This might be families of victims of homicide or victims of crime themselves that survived, but they carry this anger, this fear, this whole range of emotions that can be
soul destroying if you're angry and hanging onto that. And I've spoken to people I won't name them for the privacy side of things, but people who have their family members killed and they've sat down and I won't say make peace, but they've come to terms with what the person has done and actually met with the person, and they get a better understanding and still stay angry, but the anger is channeled in the more positive, positive direction.
So it's a good way to scope victims have a whole range of experiences and how they feel out of these processes. But part I was talking before about how this is an empowering process because the alternative the criminal justice is you go to court. The victims don't have a role in court often. I mean, we now have victim impact statements and the like, but historically the victims
feel very much marginalized in the process. Yet you go in the court room and the perpetrators in the dock, the judges up there, the lawyers are sort of having the argument, and the victims sort of sitting in the back, probably not often not understanding the process because it's complex. It's legal ease. You know, the witnesses come in. The victim may or may not be a witness. People are spoken to me about the fact. They come out of the other side of that now like that all happened around me.
But I'm sort of still here and I don't know what happened, and I don't have a sense of having got to tell my story very well. You know, the defense Paris was cross examining me. I felt like a criminal. So it's a pretty dissatisfying process for a lot of victims, whereas restorative justice is a very different process.
I hadn't even thought about the thought about it in that context. But yeah, I do understand what you're saying, because quite often for murder trials, I'm with the family the whole time and they come out and they just what was that all about? Speaking in legal jargon and not understanding and being excluded from the courts on certain things. I was involved in the first victim impact statement here in the state that was a murder of Ioline Cantlay,
and I remember when that came in. It was the first time being used in New South Wales, and I got the sense there was a lot of resentment from the court system because the court system like, we don't need to hear from the victims. Yeah, that type of let's call it intellectual arrogance that comes with the legal for eternity. But I see that the way it helps victims at least having their say, like coming in there and actually speaking, speaking the impact that's had on them.
And quite often it's very traumatic for them sitting there and it's always emotional when they're reading their victims Impact statement. But I think that's bringing some sort of humanity into the courts.
One of the things I developed a few years ago in the AC was a victim's Charter of Rights because there's a whole series of points in the justice process where victims interact with the system and it can be really dissatisfying for them, from the police obligations on the police to keep them updated on the investigation, through to the Director of Public Prosecutions again keeping the victim in
the lube telling them what's happening. Some of the worst examples I've seen where people are so upset is where there's been a plea deal done and the victims saying there going what the hell just happened?
Not consulted.
So having we've now formalized this into the victim's charter to give both victims a clear sense of their rights, but also to put the pressure on the agencies who are busy but saying them, actually, the system is going to work a whole lot better if we step through these processes.
And the system should be there. The system, I always think, laws, courts, it's here to serve the community. So if it's not providing the service that the community want, we've got to try and change it. I always think that's a good definition of police and quite often police are rating themselves on are we doing a good job or whatever. I think a police force should be judged on are they providing the service to the community that the community require,
and if they are, they're doing their doing their job. Well, let's just wind back to restorative justice a little bit too.
I think it's very powerful for the offender, especially a young offender that might quite understand what it meant when he robbed the little old lady of the handbag and ran off the street, but if he had to sit down and speak to that person and the impact that it's had on the victim, I think there has to be some benefits here because I don't know about you, but when I was a kid, I saw the ignorant to other people's emotions because your will just revolves around
you pretty much. That's been a teenager, so been dragged into that situation where you've got to confront what you've done and understand. I'm sure that has to have a good effect on that people.
That's the lesson out of it. You're absolutely right, And in recent times we've opened the scheme up to domestic and family violence and sexual offenses, and they're obviously much more difficult issues, but the case studies are fascinating. You know, people often think of domestic violence as being between intimate partners, but it can also be young people, often young men, assaulting brothers and sisters or their parents, these kind of things.
You've got a situation there where the family doesn't want the young person to go to jail. I definitely want the violence to stop, and so this can be a really powerful process of that because you're putting people in a room who want to get an outcome, who want to restore their family unit, but the violence has to stop, it can't continue. People at first instance, thinking how can you do that? But then you look at the case studies that come through and it's so powerful.
You said sex offenders as well. How's that play out?
Yeah, Look, we haven't seen so many we've had this. We open it up probably about two or three years ago. Now, we've not had so many sexual assault matters coming through. It's obviously the most difficult area.
Yeah, I could imagine the beacon, the fronting.
And the whole point of a storative justice is it's all done with consent. No one's forced into it on either side of the equation of a victims. There's no way then it's just it's never going to happen. And if the offender is not there saying I'm open to taking some responsibility, well it's not going to happen. And so the facilitators who run the process have a really
important role to sort of make that judgment. There's a series of pre meetings and it takes quite a bit of preparation where because you can't have people going in there just trying to get off scot free or get the easy route.
Yeah, and you've got to give the agency to the victims too. So the fact that you can't well, this person's assaulted you. Now you've got to sit in this room and talk to this person.
And clearly, for some victims of crime, it's just something they're not going to want to do. But that goes that spectrum of victims and their hopes and their aspirations and there you know what they think they might get out of.
It will wrap up shortly for part one that when we come back, we're going to break down some other aspects of way of fighting crime. But I just want to talk in a general sense because a lot of it's going to be about what happens. What happens in the prisons. My observation of prisons, and it's not these are not my figures, but when it was said to me and the work that I did within the prisons, it makes a lot of sense. You've got probably twenty or thirty percent of people that are in prison that
are let's call them professional criminals. They've just chosen that life. They know they could be the thief that we know what's going to happen. We're going to get out, we're going to do our crime, and we're going to come back in. So they're a hard group to change. That might be their family history, that might be you know what they were raised, values, their rays. So they're the professional criminals. Then you probably sit with maybe sixty percent
of people that have made mistakes. These are the people that they're inherently good people. They've just gone on the wrong path, surround themselves with the wrong people, had no direction in their the hate being in jail. They hate themselves and not hate, that's a strong word, but they're not. This is not what they want their life to be. So that sits sixty percent. Then the leftovers are the
people that society needs to be protected by. And really, yeah, I haven't gone too soft my attitude with some of that level of people. I don't care what happens to them. They've got to be taken away from society because of the nature of the crime. So any work that we can do in that space if we can't, you know, you can't change everyone. Sometimes the things that you've proposed will fail. But if you can change a few of those people in there, it has to be better, doesn't it.
It's that sixty percent that I'm most interested in. You you're it's a good description of them. It's my experience of watching who's in the system and what they're there for and why they found themselves in those circumstances. If we can get that sixty percent, that's a great start.
Yeah. Yeah. For me. With mcquarie Correctional Center in New South Wales, the work that they're doing there.
I have not been a Macquarie nine Yeah, okay.
I went up there, spent a couple of weeks in there, invited by Corrective Services and what they're doing at maximum security prison. But they have the prisoners living in dorms, which I thought in maximum security prison that's going to be a blood bath. You can't put twenty five prisoners in a dorm and just lock the keys and leave them there. But there's no When I say there's no violence. If there is violent actions up there, they're removed from
Mcquarie Correctional Center. They work for six hours a day, like go to a employment within the prison whatever they're doing, and they study for six hours a day and they resolve their conflicts, not with a ship which happens in most prisons. And it was like I was sitting down speaking to the prisons and they go, okay, we'll live in here. Twenty five of us in this dorm. If I've got an issue with Shane, we'll raise it and we'll discuss this, and then we might suggest that Shane
should go to another dorm or whatever. And while I was picking up from them, the corrective services officers, they treat them with respect, and there was mutual respect between the two groups. It wasn't that clear line the blue and the green that normally occurs in prisons, basically setting them up so when they get back out in the society, they've got skills that they have. The skills that they developed, they're transferable into when they get back into the community.
I was amazed by the work that was done there, and I think part of the reason Correactive Services invited me in there as a cop. You know, people assume I've got this natural leaning towards get tough on the crooks. The modeling of the prison system. The Scandinavian countries do similar type things. I was amazed at what happened, what happening in that prison. I walked away very impressed. I'm
speaking to speaking to people. I'm not naive speaking to the inmates, but there were some hard cases in there and going, look, we've been treated like humans. We've been treated with respect. That sets us up better when we get to get out back into the community. What's your thoughts on that type of prison system.
It's interesting to say that the Act didn't have a jail until two thousand and nine ten. That sort of era, people used to be sent to Kuma or Goldwyn or various other places. The jar was open with a very similar model in mind. And we've got a campus style jail where people do live in cottages, they order their food, they cook together, again building some of those skills. I think it's got a lot of potential. I don't think we quite got it right in the Act. Our jail
was built with no industries they were built. It was built with people were just going to get education and study. And this is not a cohort of people who are going to sit on the books too well, you know, they need much more practical things. I've been to a visit to Long Day Jail where they've got a whole stream of industry sets. You know, I really found that inspiring because you're walking through and you're chatting the guys and they're like, this is great. I've developed this skill.
I'm making things that your earlier point around a sense of self worth. So there's definitely that's the model we should be going down so that when people come out they've got skills. And because we didn't build our jail with industries, we've got a significant problem. A board and people just sitting around.
And bore them creates.
Yeah, it creates, creates, violence, create drugs, drug seeking behavior, all of those things.
So the thing that I came away with after spending time in that prison, and I also went into another prison that was more the traditional but at the Macquarie Correctional Center, there was people that the sense of pride there was. There was a different feel, a different vibe in the prison, and prisons have that vibe. You walk in and you're just, oh, this is a horrible place.
But there were some positive things happening there. And the way that they were being treated and the inmates were being treated, the way they treated each other, and the way that the staff were treating the inmates and vice versa. I thought that was really positive. So I from a police point of view, and again I reference it back to Ken Marslow that if there's less crime, yeah, there's less victims.
So and the whole community is say, we're all better.
Off and people I think, and this is wind the clock back centuries ago. If someone misbehaved invariably, they had to you know what sort of discipline. Well, they were part of the tribe or part of the community. So we couldn't just get rid of that person and send them off to a prison. There had to be punishment. But they've got to be part of the community. They might have been the hunter there or the gatherer or whatever. Now we're in these big cities and someone misbehaves, let's
just send them off to jail. We don't care. We're not worried about when they come back into the community. But they do come back into the community.
It's a really good point and it goes to another example we're operating in the Act where we have a circle sentence in court. Yeah, it's called jalumbarney, which is a local Aboriginal word, and it's for Abridginal and tost other people. And there's a judge that sits on it.
But then they also have a panel of elders sit with them, and so usually young offenders, they're most of the young people they have to come in and they have to sit there and explain themselves to the arnies and uncles yea who know their family and probably know their parents, you know, And there's a is that community element of all. Actually, you're part of our family. But what you've done has harmed our family, shamed our family, caused a problem for us. What are you going to do about it?
There's that punishment, but we've also we need you as part part of the community in the.
Community is taking responsibility for that as well.
I think it was down there Bateman's Bay area. Someone was telling me about a young fellow and he was sentenced on that aspect of it to go fishing with an old fellow.
Yeah, Like, how good's that?
Like, Okay, you've done the wrong thing and he's sitting with an old wise man just sort of steering him in the right direction. And to me, that seems a lot better than throwing them in a juvenile detention center and going hard on them. Indeed, So it's just changing, changing the way of approaching things. We have got so much to talk about, But we'll have a break now and when we come back we'll deal further into our discussion.
Terrific cheers,