Robin de Crespigny, The People Smuggler
| Author | Michael Grewcock |
| Published date | 01 December 2012 |
| Date | 01 December 2012 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0004865812458057 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
Australian & New Zealand
Journal of Criminology
45(3) 443–451
!The Author(s) 2012
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DOI: 10.1177/0004865812458057
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Book Reviews
Robin de Crespigny, The People Smuggler, Viking: Camberwell, 2012; 353 pp.: ISBN 978-0-670-07655-0
(pbk)
The people smuggler has emerged as somewhat of a folk devil within Australia’s febrile
public discourse on border policing. Labelled variously as ‘evil’, ‘scum of the earth’ and
‘criminal’, the smuggler is portrayed as being responsible for putting the lives of refugees
at risk, ruthlessly exploiting vulnerable individuals in pursuit of profit and undermining
orderly migration processes. Within this paradigm, there is no room for ambiguity
or critique: smugglers should be policed out of existence, their activities punished by
mandatory minimum prison sentences and their ‘business model’ consigned to the dust-
bin of history.
With the major political parties in Australia vying to establish their credentials as the
most capable of fulfilling these tasks, the absence of any systematic criminological
research on people smuggling is largely overlooked. While a lack of supporting evidence
or an unwillingness to acknowledge critical analysis is not unique when it comes to
populist political posturing, it is particularly malign in this case. The conventional
wisdom about smuggling not only justifies an especially punitive legal regime aimed at
smugglers but also inflicts considerable and often permanent collateral damage upon
refugees who are subjected to indefinite detention, forced removal and lives in limbo in
accordance with the spurious logic of deterrence.
However, despite the highly charged political rhetoric about people smuggling and
the prolonged parliamentary stand-off over how to implement off-shore processing, it is
becoming increasingly obvious that the prevailing approach to people smuggling is fail-
ing in its own terms. One indicator of failure is that although the numbers are tiny by
global standards, refugees continue to risk unauthorised entry into Australia rather than
face years stranded in camps or a precarious existence in transit states such as Malaysia
or Indonesia. Another indicator, one that is generating increasing concern amongst
lawyers and judges dealing with smuggling cases, is the grossly disproportionate num-
bers of crew members – mostly from remote fishing communities, often teenagers and
playing a minimal organising role – who are being swept up by the anti-smuggling
regime. How is condemning such people to a mandatory minimum prison sentence of
five years either fair or capable of seriously impacting on arrangements for illicit travel to
Australia?
One answer is to suggest that more focus should be placed on the organisers – the
so-called ‘kingpins’. But this is also deeply problematic. Despite constant representations
of organisers, even those who have day jobs stacking shopping trolleys, as egregious
examples of the transnational criminal,
1
the available evidence (for example, Kelly,
2010) suggests strongly that most organisers are either refugees themselves or part of
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