Commonsense Elements Of Crime

Commonsense law involves a person’s opinion on law and order and crime issues, thee opinions are “built, layer upon layer, through constant repetition by popular and authoritative sources”…. (Hogg, Brown 1998, p. 18). Two of these ‘commonsense elements’, ‘soaring crime rates’ and ‘we need tougher penalties’, can be compared to a newspaper article written by Rita Panahi in the Herald Sun on the 12th of April 2017, titled, ‘Tougher Approach is Long Overdue’.

The first commonsense elements of law and order thinking identified by Hogg and Brown that I’ll be looking at is ‘soaring crime rates’. This refers to the depiction of crime that the media repeatedly illustrate. Whether it’s being over-reliant on untrustworthy statistics provided by the

This element is centred around an advertisement in the Courier-Mail that read “Queensland Law Is Now Tougher On Criminals”. In this advertisement, there were two tables, one indicating increases in maximum penalties for 23 nominated crimes, and the second one set out penalties for a range of “new charges and laws introduced for ‘New Age’ crimes”… (Hogg, Brown 1998, p. 38). Hogg and Brown state that “the call for ‘tougher penalties’ is a perennial theme of law and order debate”…(Hogg, Brown 1998, p. 38). According to Hogg and Brown, there are numerous sub-themes including the re-introduction of capital punishment, complaints about the leniency of prison sentences, parole and remission being overly generous, and prisoners’ living conditions being too comfortable and enjoyable. One of the major flaws in tougher penalties is “it is possible to generate public confidence simply by putting more people in prison”…(Hogg, Brown 1998, p. 39) leaving open the risk of false imprisonment, which in itself, brings along other major long-term problems. Overall, the commonsense element ‘we need tougher penalties’, involves the implementation of tougher penalties on criminals due to the strong public opinion on the

Matthew Guy’s proposal is a reaction to Australia’s ‘crime crisis’. “In the past year there’s been a steep increase in the number of violent offences with a 16.4 per cent increase in murders, 18.6 per cent increase in attempted murders, 11.8 per cent increase in assaults and related offences and 22.3 per cent increase in dangerous and negligent acts endangering people.” ….(Panahi, 2017, p. 25). Panahi also states that “Aggravated burglary offences have soared by 40.6 per cent, car thefts are up 27 per cent and robberies 24.4 per cent.”… (Panahi, 2017, p. 25). These alarming statistics are clear evidence of the ‘soaring crime rates’ that Hog and Brown discuss, along with the discussion of them in Panahi’s