Article review

The West Australian – Wednesday, September 8th, 2010
Article by Amanda Banks – Legal Affairs Editor

“On-the-spot fines a step closer”…

The article chosen for review due to its being relatively unchanged by the journalist is: ‘on-the-spot fines a step closer’ from the West Australian Newspaper.
This article has been put together, most likely by the Police Department and State Government, for the purpose of sharing information with the public on a grand scale. It tells of the intended changes that will occur within Western Australia’s legal system, in regard to on-the-spot-fines.
It explains factually that the legislation has been drawn up with the help of the police and will go before State Parliament on the day of print.
It goes on the talk about that there will be changes to the criminal code and powers of police officers to serve people with infringements for petty crimes, further outlining the basic offences that will be affected.
It goes on to provide more back up facts about the NSW legislation it is being based on and the purpose of implementing it. The benefits are also outlined, being lower amounts of time being spent on administrative duties by police and the courts, while police can be targeting the front line. This information touches on peoples need for police to be out there protecting the public, which is why the PR person has put it in there.
A quote was provided from Police Minister Rob Johnson, which shows that the police department most likely provided the details required to write this article: “This is all about smarter and more effective law enforcement, ensuring that our police officers are on the beat fighting crime and our court system is working more efficiently.”
Explaining that: juveniles under 17 will not be fined and that stolen property, when recovered, will be returned to the owners at a much faster rate as it will not be held for evidence, is a way of the police attempting to make the legislation appeal to peoples sense of concern for themselves and also for the youth of our community.
As people read the article the question will arise of: ‘Hang on a minute, these cops could just hand out fines to whoever they want, how do you appeal?’ and that question is answered by the 3rd column where it talks about challenging charges. This article was deeply considered before issuing all the information to avoid any negative response from the audience.
To wrap up the article, there are comments from: WA Police Executive Director Greg Italiano saying “Giving police the option of issuing fines for low level offences would be effective and had proved successful in other states”, and Shadow Police Minister Margaret Quirk saying “Labor would need to consider the details of the bill, which had not yet been provided as of yesterday, before deciding whether to support the changes but the laws appeared to work in other states’.
These closing comments, again show a great support for these changes from very influential people and supports the theory that this story was essentially put together by the Police Department and State Government and it managed to stay relatively unchanged by the journalist, with not a single comment or opinion being pushed by the Miss Banks.