VIOLENT CRIME AND ITS CAUSES: BACKING FOR POLICE CHIEF

The Premier said yesterday he would be happy to have the Commissioner of
the Australian Federal Police, Mr Mick Palmer, appear before a State
parliamentary committee inquiring into the allocation of police resources
in Cabramatta.

Mr Carr's remarks come just days after his Police Minister, Mr Whelan,
suggested the committee should be shut down.

Mr Carr was responding to comments made by Mr Palmer in the Herald that
ethnically based gangs involved in drug trafficking were responsible for
much of the increase in violent crime in all cities, particularly in Sydney.

Mr Palmer, who retires this week, said the changing nature of violent crime
in Australia was a cause for real concern.

Blaming ethnically based gangs, he said: "It's related to some of the
ethnicity of some of the people involved in the [drug] trade and the fact
that the use of knives and guns is a more familiar part of the criminal
side of those cultures than has been the case in Australia."

Mr Palmer yesterday received backing in his stance from the NSW Director of
Public Prosecutions, Mr Nick Cowdery, QC, who said criminals were using
more guns and knives than ever before.

"From the cases we have prosecuted, guns are used more often these days,
and there seem to be too many guns in the community; that is a worrying
trend," he said.

"In the last five years there has been an increase in the use of guns,
particularly handguns, in the commission of serious crime..."

He agreed with Mr Palmer that laws relating to the right to silence needed
to be reviewed, but he said legislation to effect some changes was already
before State Parliament.

He was cautious about any change to the onus of proof.

(Mr Palmer told the Herald there was a small but increasing number of
criminals who had no respect for the rule of law and who aggressively
thumbed their noses at law enforcement and the system of justice.)

Mr Cowdery said: "With regard to the onus, I would want to see the detail
of any proposal that might affect the onus of proof; I do not think that is
something we should jump into quickly.

"There may be some areas where the onus could be shifted to the defence,
and indeed it happens in limited circumstances.."

In terms of labelling ethnically based crime for what it was, Mr Cowdery
said: "I think we should be open and honest in the ways in which we refer
to what can be observed."

A spokeswoman for the NSW Police Commissioner, Mr Peter Ryan, said he was
unavailable for comment yesterday.

Responding to Mr Palmer's remarks, Mr Carr said a slur should not be cast
over all people from ethnic groups.

"But let's not resile from using the most accurate evidence-based
descriptions of an offender and getting what matters to the public: the
arrest that makes a safer community for all of us."

He said if the parliamentary committee came up with sound suggestions they
would be "assessed as part of our continuing review of drug strategies and
police strategies in Cabramatta".

The Unity Party MP, Dr Peter Wong, said police needed to deal better with
crime that involved ethnic communities, "and that means building better
relations with ethnic communities".

"We can't ask police to ignore [crimes] committed by people from an ethnic
community, but they must be careful not to blame a whole community or to
use people's ethnicity as an excuse for failing to combat some areas of crime."

Dr Wong added that governments also needed to build better services and
provide job opportunities for young people in areas such as Cabramatta.