NSW: Universities have failed in crime debate: Professor = 2

AAP General News (Australia)
08-08-2001
NSW: Universities have failed in crime debate: Professor = 2

During the seminar's first session, chaired by television presenter Quentin Dempster,
Ethnic Communities' Council of NSW chair Salvatore Scevola, said ethnicity was being linked
with criminal activity as an easy way out for police.

"Instead of searching for culprit, it is much simpler for police and the media to find
a scapegoat and throw about the term ethnic," he told the seminar.

"It appears that this is a quick and easy way to save the law-makers and the law-keepers.

"There is no such thing as ethnic solidarity in crime."

He questioned the focus of Australia's law enforcement efforts on street and petty
crime while white collar, corporate, international and political crime went relatively
unnoticed.

The emphasis on street and petty crime lent itself to headlines that fed the fears
of those who highlighted it as a predominately ethnic phenomenon, Mr Scevola said.

Sensational coverage of the issues had placed Australia's ethnic minorities in disrepute.

But he said the nation's ethnic communities were marginalised from the time they first
set foot in the country.

"In Australia there is a tendency to describe people of non-English speaking backgrounds
as foreigners, dagos, wogs, nippers, chongs, Arabs, Lebbos and of course, ethnics," he
said.

"New arrivals are made to feel, amongst other things, unwanted second-rate citizens,
and it takes a long time for them to feel they belong to this society."

He said sensational reporting by some media outlets opened up old wounds and helped
widen the gap separating those who considered themselves "Australians" and "the others".

Mr Scevola called on the state and federal governments to stop using "out of control"

crime on the streets as a vehicle to vilify the nation's ethnic communities.

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