The New South Wales Aboriginal Legal Service says knife laws being pushed by the state government will cause harm to Aboriginal people and other marginalised groups.
The NSW Government has proposed laws that will give police the power to search people in public for knives without a warrant.
The laws are based on those being trialled in Queensland that allow police to used hand held metal detectors.
The legal service points to a Griffith University study that found the laws have had no improvement in deterring knife crime.
In a statement CEO Karly Warner says recent events that have prompted the proposal were devastating “but the proposed laws would not have prevented those incidents.
All they will do is force more Aboriginal people and other marginalised groups into contact with police.”
She says “police discretion is directly linked to the historic all-time high in Aboriginal imprisonment in NSW.”
(IMAGE: Kitchen knives, eltpics, Flickr.com)
