The Role Of Citizens In Law Enforcement
- Citizen’s Power of Arrest. In Australia, a person can arrest someone if they think that they have or are in the process of committing an offence. They must abide by the law ensuring that no undue force is used and should hand the person to a law enforcement officer as soon as is practicable.
As a class, listen to Citizen’s Arrest and discuss with students the positive and negative aspects of the provision of citizens’ arrest. Conduct a class debate summarising the positive and negative aspects of citizens’ arrest. Prior to conducting the debate, you may wish to explain the debating process using the student handout Debating Structure, found on the Debating South Australia website, or by sharing The Debaters Association of Victoria link that explains the speaker roles. Students can be assessed using the Debate Rubric.
Further teaching ideas regarding this topic are provided in Democratic Values Lesson Idea 4
- Seeking or providing information to the police
Depending on the purpose of the call to the police there are 3 numbers that can be used. Which one should you use and when? Put the following numbers on the board and use a call out to gather information from the class.
000 (for emergencies or life threatening situations)
131 444 (when police assistance or attendance is required)
1800 333 000 (reporting crime information anonymously through Crime Stoppers)
- Ask students to think about when people should call the Police and not Crime Stoppers. Provide students with the Who Are You Going To Contact? worksheet to complete.
- Why is it important that citizens are able to anonymously provide law enforcement agencies, like Crime Stoppers, with information about crimes?