Law and order push — it's a frame-up

Law-and-order hysteria, which in the US recently jailed a young man for life for stealing a slice of pizza, is in full flight in the run-up to the March 25 New South Wales elections. Labor and Liberal are falling over each other in what the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions, Michael Cowdery, has called an "auction on law and order".

While Liberal premier John Fahey promises a "three strikes and you're out" law, Labor has trumped with a pledge to jail for life those guilty of "horrific" crimes. Even the Australian Democrats have been drawn into the contest, with Ron Cameron, Democrat candidate for the western Sydney seat of Fairfield, calling for an 11pm curfew for under-18s.

And while Alan Bond and other corporate cowboys are getting away scot-free or with minimal sentences, young people in New South Wales are about to be targeted for the terrible crime of "loitering" ...

Green Left Weekly's JENNIFER THOMPSON and DICK NICHOLS talked to three prominent opponents of the law and order push — Hilton bombing frame-up victim TIM ANDERSON, University of NSW social work professor TONY VINSON and MARY McNISH, secretary of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties.

From GLW issue 180