Download Performance Measure 1: Disruption of illegal drug supply (P33)

Submission on the Draft National Drug Strategy
By, Dr Lorraine Beyer
Performance Measure 1: Disruption of illegal drug supply (P33)
First dot point
Number and weight of illegal drug detections and seizures by drug type domestically
and at the Australian border.
It is important for transparency and clarity not to report domestic and
international drug traffick and supply offences as one combined group, as has
been done in the past. From a research, performance and counteraction
perspective it does not make sense to do this because import and domestic
supply offending especially where the importation is large, are an entirely
different type of offence, the offenders are very different and they have very
different impacts on supply. To group them with street sellers obscures the
extent to which there has been success and effectiveness in targeting high
level offenders and dismantling significant drug syndicates.
Statistical reports must differentiate between import supply offenders and
domestic supply offenders. To do otherwise is misleading.
Second dot point.
Number of illegal drug traffic and/or supply arrests by drug type.
The Performance Measure of number of arrests by drug type is naïve and
inadequate. Heavy weight heroin import offenders and law enforcement
officers have expressed a united view in my research that when drugs seized
are the performance indicator the focus of law enforcement will necessarily be
encouraged to remain on the bottom worker role level in illegal drug
importations. This is because organisers of illegal drug importations,
especially heroin, are careful to distance themselves from the illegal drugs.
In terms of the national agencies, a performance measure should not only
focus on the drugs and the weight seized but also on the quality of the
arrests and detections. There is no Performance Measures that gives an
indication of the number of high level import organisers who are arrested/
detected. This is important because it relates directly to the purported aims of
the counteraction agencies.
To enable proper performance assessment against key agency aims,
agencies need to introduce into their data bases a categorisation system
for offender role/ level - similar to that of most other countries. Without this
categorisation, all arrests are given equal weight whether they are drug
addicted sellers selling on the streets, or business people organising a large
import shipment of drugs. If only workers and couriers are being arrested/
detected – which would be expected if seizure of drugs is the main measure –
then this needs to be made clear in the statistics.
A performance indicator of ‘number and scale of financial detections and
asset seizures’ would also provide a much more accurate measure of the
scale and importance of the arrests and detections being made than would
weight of the drugs seized.
Dr Lorraine Beyer
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Another measure that would give greater clarity of success in import seizures
of drugs such as cocaine and heroin is to provide consumption estimates
which can be compared to amounts seized. This would give a measure of
what is getting through to consumers compared to what is being seized
and thus the effectiveness of counteraction efforts and focus. (Such
measures have been done before based on the estimated number of users in
Australia, by average consumption with seizures estimated to be about 10%
of what is used.)
Section on Evidence (p31)
None of the identified problems with drug importation 'evidence' and data that I
highlighted in my submission – based on extensive research and consultation seem to have been addressed.
There is such a scanty body of research into drug importation offending that the
remarks about "evidence-informed practice is the integration of the existing
evidence with professional expertise . . . " (31) shows complete disregard for the
fact that the main problem is a lack of existing evidence, caused by a number of
flaws that should be addressed as a matter of urgency if there is to be an
increase in the efficacy of evidence to support counteraction and policy making.
There is no mention of specific measures to improve and expand evidence in the
areas of higher level drug dealing, which is currently rare and severely hampered
by:
 data being scattered across unlinked databases;
 a large number of missing variables in data bases;
 lack of collection of the sort of information that could improve
understandings of the offence and the offenders, such as type of role of
the arrestee and groups’ organisational complexity, and
 lack of working definitions that contain clear inclusion and exclusion
criteria and clear definitions for commonly used terms such as major
offender, significant offender and high level offender.
Why hasn’t the Drug Strategy addressed the major stumbling block to
development of an evidence base for illegal drug importation (and domestic
middle level drug markets) - which is the lack of legislative protection for research
confidentiality in Australia. No research into illegal behaviours in Australia is
immune from the possibility of the research material being subpoenaed, including
names and contact details. Research participants are left vulnerable if they
participate in research and researchers are at risk of prosecution and jail terms
for failure to reveal participants and particular information obtained in the course
of their research.
For studies of less serious criminal offending with lower penalties legislative
protection is worked around by ethics committees and researchers - although
there are still ethical implications here. Where the offending has heavy penalties
such as for illegal drug importing it becomes a severely limiting factor. Ethics
Committees and researchers are reluctant to approve or conduct research under
conditions where confidentiality can’t be guaranteed.
While no legislative protection for researchers into study of illegal behaviours in
Australia continues, the widely promoted and accepted philosophy of evidence-
Dr Lorraine Beyer
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based policy and practise for law enforcement is severely undermined and is
essentially a farce.
There are a number of countries where research into criminal behaviour has
protection, Canada among them. Without the removal in Australia of the current
restrictive legislation, researchers will be placing themselves and their research
participants at risk and policy and practise will continue to be based on severely
limited data.
Dr Lorraine Beyer
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