Ananian-Welsh on Preventive Organised Crime Measures

Tuesday, August 14, 2018

 

The impact of a preventive measure is generally experienced before a wrong has occurred. However, as chapters in this volume have identified, such measures often involve serious impositions on liberty. It is these kinds of measures that Ashworth and Zedner describe as ‘coercive preventive measures’. The primary justification for a preventive measure therefore tends to focus on its effectiveness: an intrusion on liberty may be acceptable because it avoids a much greater wrong. But what if the effectiveness of a preventive measure is never demonstrated? One might expect that measure to be repealed, thereby avoiding an unnecessary intrusion on liberty. This chapter considers the role that proven effectiveness may play in guiding the evolution of a preventive measure. I focus on the migration of control orders in Australia – from the anti-terrorism context to that of organised crime, and across domestic jurisdictions. I then trace the role of proven effectiveness in the extension of the control order paradigm to a new extreme. I do not attempt a realistic assessment of whether control orders are, in fact, effective at preventing crime. Rather, I focus on the rhetoric of effectiveness and query whether proof of the (in)effective functioning of these laws facilitated or stalled their adoption, their migration or their escalation to new levels of severity.

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/crimprof_blog/2018/08/ananian-welsh-on-preventive-organised-crime-measures.html

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Ananian-Welsh on Preventive Organised Crime Measures curated from CrimProf Blog