New South Wales: The Murder Capital (Murder was the State)

I saw this in Sunday's newspaper and was just shocked. I've cut and pasted the main paragraphs from the article:

21 murders in 37 days: homicide police overwhelmed

By John Kidman, Eamonn Duff and Erin O'Dwyer
February 12, 2006

NSW Police has launched 21 murder investigations in 37 days, marking the state's bloodiest new year since monthly homicide records began in 1995.

The spate of killings claimed the lives of 14 men, six women and an 18-month-old boy between January 1 and February 6 and left a dozen people facing the prospect of lengthy jail terms.

At the time, Police Commissioner Ken Moroney made a personal commitment to grieving families that his officers would always keep working on unsolved crimes. While the NSW Police Association believes about 3000 extra officers are needed statewide on any given day, as many as one in four top detectives are unavailable to investigate major sexual assaults, major robberies, drug deals and fraud cases.

Some investigators believe political pressure is undermining policing priorities. "We've been taken off major criminal matters to basically do assaults and malicious-damage inquiries," said one officer. He said the resources being diverted to the Enoggera strike force (inquiring into the Cronulla race riots) were "overkill".

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Murder was the case

Let me start out with a big "WHAT IS WRONG WITH SOCIETY THESE DAYS?". We have 14 year old girls running our streets, killing a disabled taxi driver. Then they go on a rampage and start robbing people at Strathfield station with a knife. A Sudanese refugee is beaten to death by a bunch of teenagers after retailiating when an egg is thrown at him. Two weeks ago, the body of a missing pregnant woman is found murdered in a river out west. This is simply crazy. This is mayhem.

I admit that despite all this happening, it still feels very distant. I don't feel that any of this has affected me in anyway. I still go out late at night, still feel relatively safe in strange places. Of course, I watch my back but I don't feel like the streets are watching my every move.

What has caused all these murders?

I was amazed when I found this out in my Criminal Law class almost 5 years ago. Most murders are committed by people known to the victim and are usually in some kind of relationship with them eg. a family member, a lover, a co-worker, a neighbour. I think its because it takes a lot to randomly kill a stranger. A lot of anger and pshyconess to kill someone you don't know over an arguement. But when someone you love angers you, or someone you know very well just pisses you off bigtime or you get emotional over something, sometimes you can lose your senses more so than with a stranger. Maybe it might push you over the edge and to the extreme.

But that doesn't explain why there are so many murders lately. Some of it comes down to just people coming from broken homes and not having the social support around them to deal with their anger and violence, and some of it boils down to the lack of policing resources we have in this state. There are many reasons and I've only listed a few of the main ones. People kill for many reasons.

It's a 187

We have laws in place to deal with murder. But often the appropriate sentence is not applied to deter people or to punish people accordingly. Most normal people in society know that killing someone is just plain wrong. Its a socially accepted norm. Kill is bad. Then what else stops them? We so often hear about killers not recieving just deserts. Not recieving what the "victim's family", the tabloids and society deems to be appropriate.

The article calls for additional policing and that addresses part of the problem. With greater supervision, and investigative powers to follow up crimes and quicker response times, many more potential murders could be stopped and solved and offenders brought to justice.

But I think it's much deeper than that. It's a societal issue. It's been happening since Cain mudered Abel in the bible. We need to educate and supervise our young people so that they grow up with their heads screwed right. Ensure they have the means and outlets to manage their anger in relationships. that they have adequate social structures around them.

Increase The Peace.

DJ Ho