Until Australia was elected to the UN Human Rights Council, with the resulting increased attention on our treatment of refugees, I hadn’t realised what a world leader in crime prevention we really are. As Australian politicians have repeatedly said, the indefinite detention in concentration camps for the refugees who were defrauded out of large amounts of money by people smugglers is purely aimed at stopping the people smugglers’ illegal business.
The notion of punishing the victims of crime to target the offenders is brilliant and innovative. This obviously successful model can now be applied to other areas of crime prevention. For example, the remaining property of victims of burglary could be confiscated to prevent more burglaries; the burglars would eventually have nothing left to steal, and would quickly be driven out of business.
The same approach could be applied to other property crimes including fraud. Most violence would be eradicated by locking up victims of violent crime to protect them from repeat victimisation.
John Walker, Queanbeyan NSW