Australian Politics and Policy - Senior, 2019a

Australian Politics and Policy
responses to extraordinary criminal incidents tend to result in the adoption of the
elite model of policy making.
Policy transfer
Theformulationofpurelyoriginalandinnovativepublicpolicyrarelyoccursinthe
criminal justice space; rather, policy makers often draw inspiration from policies in
other jurisdictions, both within and outside their country. 30 This practice is known
as policy transfer. Policy transfer occurs in multiple forms. Policies from another
jurisdiction may be:
• directly copied and transferred to the target jurisdiction
• emulated by copying some elements and adapting them to suit local conditions
• usedtoinspirethefinalpolicyoutcome
• combined to achieve the policy outcome.
Below are some examples of Australian law and order policies that have been
imported and adopted from other jurisdictions:
• Prison privatisation: traditionally, all Australian prisons were operated by state
and territory governments. But over time the private sector has been given
responsibility for operating prisons. The privatisation of criminal justice
services first originated from neoliberal ideals in the USA. The growing
acceptance of neoliberal ideas saw a remarkable shift in the way the population
thought about state ownership and control, suggesting that the operation of
state institutions should be subject to market forces of competition and
efficiency. Thus the concept of private prisons was born, resulting in the
commodification of punishment.
• Risk instruments:arangeofriskassessmenttoolsthatfirstemergedintheUSA
are used in the Australian justice system.Thesetoolsassessthelevelofriska
person poses to society. This then largely informs the way in which they are
dealt with in the justice system – for example, whether bail or parole is granted.
• Political law and order slogans: law and order style rhetoric from the USA and
UK has been often transferred into the Australian context. Examples include:
UKPrimeMinisterTonyBlair’s‘toughoncrime,toughonthecausesof
crime’ political slogan and rhetoric
US President Ronald Reagan’s ‘war on drugs’ political campaign.
In addition to importing policies from foreign jurisdictions, Australian policies have
also been exported. Restorative justice 31 is an example of a policy that first emerged
in Australia and New Zealand that has since gained traction in the USA and UK.
30 Ogg 2015.
31 Restorative justice is an approach that aims to heal (or minimise) the harm caused by the
offender upon the victim. Examples of restorative justice include family group conferencing,
youth justice conferencing and circle sentencing.
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