Having seen the Rambo-Robo Cop Swat teams or whatever they are called on the streets is a sad statement of the state of Australia. I am suspicious of anything our current PM is involved in. It is very convenient for manipulating Public opinion to have this event follow so closely on the deployment of troops to the middle east. It raises the questions of Australias surveillance state and privacy issues. Determining intent is also a very difficult issue. While criminal intent is a necessary component of mens rea [guilty mind] in virtually every modern legal system, its particulars may vary between jurisdictions. There often exists a distinction between basic intent and specific intent. Since it requires a lighter burden of proof, the former is used more often to establish criminal intent. For instance, an individual who strikes a pedestrian crossing the street in a marked crosswalk can be said to have exhibited basic intent whether or not they intended to cause the pedestrian harm. There are two reasons for this. First, the driver may have ignored state and local law requiring vehicles to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks. Absent such laws, the driver either failed to pay close attention to the road ahead or assumed that the pedestrian would be able to avoid their oncoming vehicle. In either case, the driver abdicated their legal responsibility to take reasonable precautions to ensure the safety of others on the road. Specific intent is invoked less frequently and often applies to cases in which the accused intends to commit a crime but has not yet done so. It may be used to justify preventive detentions associated with terrorism, treason or sabotage. For instance, an individual who has communicated his intent to assassinate an official may be judged to exhibit specific intent on the basis of his or her pronouncements. thelawdictionary.org/criminal-intent/ Although the intent of criminal profiling is clearly scientific, the investigative results are not always accurate. Critics often mention that criminal profiling is more art than science, and some police departments and government agencies, particularly in the United States, have debased this activity by introducing elements such as demographics, economics, race, and ethnicity to guide their actions. This is known as racial profiling. Gang suppression units and crime intelligence departments at law enforcement agencies often engage in racial profiling without even realizing it. A new trend in police work is crime prevention through behavioral and socioeconomic analysis combined with some elements of criminal profiling; to some critics, this practice sounds more like the precognition police officers in the 2002 science fiction film Minority Report, starring Tom Cruise. thelawdictionary.org/article/the-reality-of-criminal-profiling/ I find it unsettling that Politicians MAY be able to use these means for political expediency. There needs to be a very HIGH burden of proof or else we risk losing a lot of personal freedom.
Posted on: Fri, 19 Sep 2014 04:16:47 +0000