Crime crackdown in Adelaide opposed by law society

The South Australian law society has slammed the state government's decision to roll out stricter crime laws in Adelaide's CBD.

Transcript

00:00 The laws we are talking about have already been in place for almost a decade, but up

00:06 until recently they've only been able to be enforced on Friday and Saturday between 6pm

00:11 and 6am.

00:12 Those laws do allow police to be able to search someone for weapons or drugs, they can remove

00:17 someone from a location or ban someone from a venue for 24 hours, and they can also remove

00:22 a child if they are at risk or if they are behaving badly.

00:28 Up until recently, or for the past month now, the police have been able to enforce those

00:33 laws seven nights a week.

00:36 The Law Society of South Australia have really slammed this crackdown saying it could be

00:40 putting vulnerable people at risk.

00:43 They've said that these changes are disproportionate and the changes are not addressing the issues

00:50 that are leading to antisocial behaviour in the first place.

00:54 Now the whole reason these laws were introduced and the stricter laws have come into place

01:02 is to try and really reduce crime in the Adelaide CBD.

01:06 We did hear from the Assistant Police, the Acting Police Commissioner last month who

01:11 said the crime in the Adelaide city has actually been quite steady.

01:15 Over the past six years, the President of the Law Society, James Marsh, has said that

01:22 police should only be able to have these powers under special circumstances.

01:26 [BLANK_AUDIO]