Review of the Police Powers (Drug Premises) Act 2001 - NSW ...

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8.2. Levels of drug offending Similarly, there are no consistent definitions of what constitutes the various levels of the drug trade. There is also relatively little known about the characteristics of different types of drug market participants. One notable exception is the research on the street level drug trade in Cabramatta. 717 Research is currently underway into the characteristics of heroin importers in Australia, and it is the first of its kind. 718 Supply in the illicit drug market is often conceived of as taking place at various levels. These levels are understood to reflect the stage or part of the illicit drug supply process that the drug market participant is involved in. Probably the most common model of the structure of the drug trade is three-tiered, separating drug supply into low, medium or high level. 719 One senior officer we interviewed for this review also spoke of the drug trade as consisting of three levels. 720 According to this officer, high level involved importation and organised crime syndicates, middle level was ad hoc in its structure and consisted of informal syndicates, and “low level … are your street dealers, which are often themselves addicts”. 721 Research conducted by the National Police Unit just over a decade ago found that within NSW Police, and in law enforcement agencies across Australia, there were discrepancies in how major players in the drug trade were defined: These discrepancies both within agencies and between them indicate that the definition of “major player” is very flexible and can be extended by some officers to include street and area dealers. This apparent re-defining of seriousness may have significant consequences in terms of the organisational goals set for each of the specialist drug enforcement agencies and may be reflected in the continued high rates of detection and apprehension of relatively minor drug offenders by these agencies. 722 Interviews conducted for this review, and submissions received from NSW Police to our discussion paper, suggest that this may still be the case. When interviewed for this review, the commander of the Drug Squad questioned the usefulness to operational police of defining particular levels of the drug trade. He also discussed the difficulties of determining what constitutes a particular level of the illicit drug trade: Well, you can break [drug market participants] into three groups, you can break them into four groups, you can break them into five groups. Is there one person who imports it who hands it to the person who receives it, who hands it the person who cuts it, to the person who supplies it No, there are a lot more “hands” in between. Three layers, I suppose, it’s a reasonably simplistic way to describe it. 723 He also noted that the structure of the drug trade differs according to the drug that is being supplied. 8.3. How has the level of drug supply being targeted by the Drug Premises Act been assessed While there is an absence of definitions of the various levels of the drug trade, one of the ways that the Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act, the principal drug legislation in New South Wales, 724 characterises the seriousness of different types of drug offending is according to the quantity of the prohibited drug that is involved in an offence. In that Act, graduated penalties relating to the quantity of the prohibited drug are set down: offences involving larger quantities of prohibited drugs attract more serious penalties than those involving smaller quantities. 725 The table below sets out the quantities stipulated in the Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act that relate to prohibited drugs commonly found on drug premises. 717 Lisa Maher, David Dixon, Michael Lynskey and Wayne Hall, Running the Risks, Heroin, Health and Harm in South West Sydney, National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre University of New South Wales NDARC Monograph No. 38, 1998. 718 This research is being conducted by Lorraine Beyer. 719 This model appears to have wide currency. NSW Police also used this model in its submission to our discussion paper, and several senior police who we interviewed for this review also referred to the drug trade in this way. 720 Interview, former crime manager, Cabramatta LAC, 21 August 2003. 721 Ibid. 722 P. Green and I. Purnell, Measuring the success of law enforcement agencies in Australia in targeting major drug offenders relative to minor drug offenders, National Police Research Unit, Payenham, 1995, p. 35. 723 Interview, Commander, Drug Squad, 30 September 2003. 724 Supply, possession, and a number of other offences relating to prohibited drugs are contained within the Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act. 725 Peter Zahra, Robert Arden, Mark Lerace and Beverly Schurr, Drug Law in New South Wales, Second Edition, Federation Press, Sydney, 1999, p. 3. 132 NSW Ombudsman Review of the Police Powers (Drug Premises) Act 2001
Table 18. Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act, quantity of key drug types Drug type Small quantity Traffickable quantity Indictable quantity Commercial quantity Number Amphetamine 1 gram 3 grams 5 grams 250 grams 1000 grams Cocaine 1 gram 3 grams 5 grams 250 grams 1000 grams Heroin 1 gram 3 grams 5 grams 250 grams 1000 grams Methylamphetamine 1 gram 3 grams 5 grams 250 grams 1000 grams Source: Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act, Schedule 1 To provide a gauge of the level of drug supply targeted by the Act, we have set out below data on the quantities of drugs located on identified drug premises in each of the regions in NSW. We have also included data on amounts of money seized from premises. Large amounts of money that are not accounted for by the owner or occupier of the premises are one of the indicia of drug premises in the Act. 726 There are several caveats to the interpretation of the quantities of drugs found on drug premises. As we have noted elsewhere in this report, the difficulties reportedly encountered by police because drugs were destroyed prior to their entry were a key reason why the Drug Premises Act was introduced. For this reason, an absence of prohibited drugs on premises may not reflect a lack of, or minimal involvement in, illicit drug supply. Another difficulty with using the quantity of drugs found on premises as a gauge of the level of drug supply is that some premises may only hold relatively small quantities of drugs at any one time, but may have a high turnover. Clearly, the risks involved for the drug supplier in terms of the penalties they may receive if they are apprehended increase as the quantity of drugs kept on the premises increases. Therefore, a small quantity of drugs does not necessarily signify minimal involvement in drug supply. At the same time, however, it is also worth noting that seizing large quantities of drugs may not unambiguously reflect the seriousness of offending. For instance, research conducted in prisons in the United Kingdom found that many drug couriers had minimal experience of the drug trade, and were mules or pawns for other people. 727 This research, according to an Australian study that considered ways of measuring the success of drug law enforcement: … cautions strongly against relying on length of sentence, nature, amount, purity and estimated street value of a drug, national identity of importer or offence category in assessing the seriousness of a drugs offender. 728 8.3.1. Assessing the impact of the Drug Premises Act on drug supply Assessing the overall impact on the drug trade of a single law enforcement strategy on drug supply, such as closing down drug houses under the Drug Premises Act, is not possible. At any one time, a number of drug law enforcement strategies will be operating in areas that are known for illicit drug activity. Isolating the impact of a single law enforcement strategy would be an extremely complex task and one beyond the scope of the resources of this review. Another factor which makes it difficult to assess the impact of legislation on the drug trade, as researchers in the area have pointed out, is that the recorded rate of drug offences is more a measure of police activity than an indicator of the actual rate of offending. 729 Drug offences, unlike other forms of criminal activity such as burglary or car theft, are not generally reported to police. A drop in the recorded rate of drug offending may reflect a decrease in policing activity rather than a decrease in drug offending. Therefore, while it is possible to measure the level of drug supply the law appears to be targeting, and we have set out the relevant data below, we have not attempted to measure the overall impact of the Drug Premises Act on drug supply. 726 Police Powers (Drug Premises) Act, s. 11 (g). 727 Research conducted by P. Green, quoted in P. Green and I. Purnell, Measuring the success of law enforcement agencies in Australia in targeting major drug offenders relative to minor drug offenders, National Police Research Unit, Payenham, 1995, p. 5. 728 P. Green and I. Purnell, Measuring the success of law enforcement agencies in Australia in targeting major drug offenders relative to minor drug offenders, National Police Research Unit, Payenham, 1995, p.5. 729 For further discussion on assessing the effectiveness of drug law enforcement, see Don Weatherburn, “Performance Indicators for Drug Law Enforcement”, New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, Sydney, Crime and Justice Bulletin, No. 48, 2000. NSW Ombudsman Review of the Police Powers (Drug Premises) Act 2001 133
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Review of the Police Powers (Drug P
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Contents Preface ..................
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Chapter 11. Drug move-on powers in
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Acknowledgements This report was re
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Part One. Background. Chapter 1. In
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Drug offences, unlike for example,
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elieve is in a public place with th
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Chapter 2. Methodology In this chap
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2.3.5. Health data NSP distribution
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As the table indicates, more than o
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2.4.7. Complaints The NSW Ombudsman
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NSW Police advised us that calculat
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Another data limitation is that COP
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Chapter 3. Legislative survey This
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Once police have entered the suspec
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The table below sets out the penalt
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(c) that the nature and extent of t
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The Act contains four additional in
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A fortification removal notice is r
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For example, section 39(3) of the Q
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Part Two. Drug premises Chapter 4.
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In the police training manual on th
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Case study 2. Drug premises search
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4.2.4. Presenting the application b
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A Crime Manager we interviewed from
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applications. In this Act, an inves
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Chapter 5. The definition of drug p
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5.2. Recommendation That Parliament
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5.5.2. Section 11(2)(b): fortificat
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In our chapter on Cabramatta, we di
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The woman was found guilty of allow
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5.5.5. Means or devices for drug us
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Number of Premises Figure 7. Razor
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However, no other evidence of drug
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• magnum revolver and a 0.357 mag
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5.5.8. Section 11(2)(g): large amou
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The magistrate noted that there wer
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In relation to the money located on
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5.7.6. Cars as drug premises As we
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… rather than being on the edge o
Page 81 and 82: Chapter 6. The Drug Premises Act -
Page 83 and 84: • the offence of being found on,
Page 85 and 86: With reverse onus, we didn’t have
Page 87 and 88: In the following section, we will d
Page 89 and 90: Officers from the State Crime Comma
Page 91 and 92: The second reading speech, which gi
Page 93 and 94: In the granny flat, police found ca
Page 95 and 96: Table 6. Pleas entered and court ou
Page 97 and 98: The magistrate said that he had a r
Page 99 and 100: 13. Allowing use of premises as dru
Page 101 and 102: The defendant says he was not there
Page 103 and 104: Figure 13: Ages of people charged w
Page 105 and 106: Table 12. Number of charges for var
Page 107 and 108: Chapter 7. Cabramatta 7.1. Introduc
Page 109 and 110: No. of Drug Premises Figure 14: Num
Page 111 and 112: Table 13. Information about drug pr
Page 113 and 114: It should be clear that this legisl
Page 115 and 116: The unit was in disarray, with spar
Page 117 and 118: 7.5. Level of drug supply the law i
Page 119 and 120: 7.5.3 Firearms, weapons and high le
Page 121 and 122: 7.6. Charges laid under the Drug Pr
Page 123 and 124: 7.6.4. Young Asian people and drug
Page 125 and 126: Of these 52 people, 31 people pled
Page 127 and 128: 7.8. Conclusion: Impact of the Drug
Page 129 and 130: By way of comment, the continuing a
Page 131: Chapter 8. Targeting drug supply Pa
Page 135 and 136: Low level drug suppliers are more l
Page 137 and 138: Other forms of organisation in evid
Page 139 and 140: Table 19. Drugs Located, State-wide
Page 141 and 142: Table 23. Drugs located, Northern R
Page 143 and 144: However, the submission concluded b
Page 145 and 146: To begin with, telephone intercepts
Page 147 and 148: The prohibited drugs that were loca
Page 149 and 150: One factor that appears to have per
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