A SOFT VOICE OF SANITY HEARD THROUGH THE MEDIA SOUND AND FURY

The Director of Public Prosecutions brings the shock jocks and
opportunistic politicians sharply to book, writes Sally Loane.

Life imitated art, or at least aspects of his new book, when Nicholas
Cowdery, QC, left the relative comfort of his DPP chambers and took to the
media trail late last week to promote Getting Justice Wrong: Myths, Media
and Crime .

The release of his book coincided with the big story of the week - drugs -
before the economy went into reverse gear. Sydney, according to figures
published in this newspaper on Wednesday, was the drug capital of Australia
and Cabramatta was heroin central.

That day the Herald also ran a story mined from Mr Cowdery's book, his view
that doctors should be able to prescribe heroin to addicts as one way to
weaken the nexus between drugs and crime.

One commercial radio broadcaster picked up the story and interviewed Mr
Cowdery that day, scooping rivals who had appointments with the publisher
to interview him two days later when his book hit the shops.

A small crisis erupted. Those commercial stations that had scheduled Mr
Cowdery for Friday wanted him immediately, and before each other.

Other radio and television outfits, whose interest in the DPP usually
extended to bagging him from a great height over a contentious legal
decision, also wanted him NOW.

At first hand, and in his new role as author, the Director of Public
Prosecutions, one of the State's most powerful lawyers, experienced the
noise and fury of an influential sector of the commercial media. His
publisher brought forward his interview schedule.

Not that noise and fury are new to Nicholas Cowdery. The nature of the job
of his office, to decide if a charge has a reasonable prospect of
conviction, means the DPP frequently finds himself at the centre of
controversy, under attack from sections of the media and under pressure
from politicians wanting to be seen to be tough on crime.

A softly spoken man, Mr Cowdery carries a big verbal stick. He singles out
for the most savage criticism the "shock jocks" and "talkback entertainers"
who whip up community anger over law and order with what he describes as
uninformed rantings. They do not consider the public interest and how
public policy may serve it, he writes. They are concerned only with making
money. Singling out a quote from 2SM's Howard Sattler - "Well, I say good
riddance to bad rubbish. That's three less car thieves. I think they're
dead and I think that's good" - Mr Cowdery writes that, depending on the
whim of the moment, talkback entertainers will tell you that the police do
not have enough power, or they have too much; that magistrates and judges
are being too soft, or unreasonably harsh; that not enough criminals are
going to prison for long enough.

They have a whinge for all occasions and they are not consistent, he says.
They blow where the money is to be made.

He is equally scathing of the politicians who react instantly to the
entertainers' blow, competing with each other to be the toughest on crime,
particularly as elections draw near.

The conclusion the DPP reaches is that elections cause crime waves, which
disappear miraculously once they are over.

The solution is not to have elections at all. Mr Cowdery doesn't gloss over
inadequacies of the legal system and some of its practitioners. Quoting the
NSW magistrate who said that women brought on men's violence by nagging and
bitching, Mr Cowdery concedes that there are occasionally wrong decisions
and inadequate sentences.

The system, devised by humans, is not perfect, he says, but it is a good
deal better than talkback radio would have us believe.

Whether you agree or disagree with some of his more outspoken and
controversial views, or his lapses into political judgment and comment, Mr
Cowdery's book makes for fascinating reading. It is an expert insider's
view on the criminal justice system laced with a strong dose of plain
speaking when it comes to some of our gravest social ills, such as drug
addiction and youth crime.

More money at the front end, such as programs to prevent child abuse, must
reduce the job of the "undertakers" at the end of the system, he writes.

A last, sobering fact of the 20,000 notifications for child abuse and
neglect in NSW each year; a quarter of those children will turn to crime.
That's a new criminal coming on line every two hours.