John MacDonald: I'm 50/50 when it comes to citizen's arrests

I’m 50/50 on this idea the Government’s got of letting people do citizens arrests.   For security guards? Yes. For every other member of the public? It’s a definite no for me.  Let’s start with security guards and why I think these powers would be good for them.   How long have we been saying that they need more teeth to do their job? Ages.  And what we’ve meant by that, is the ability or the right to actually provide security as opposed to standing at the door and pretty much doing nothing when someone nicks stuff from a shop or assaults someone.   I think it's fair to say that at the moment, security guards only really come to life at sports matches. Everywhere else, they're about as threatening as the person who stands at the door at Bunnings. Or parent help at the Year 8 disco. So, yes, change the law to the extent where security guards are enabled to be more effective than they are now.  There is one proviso, though: we will have to make sure that security guards are screened and trained even better than they are now.  I think too, security firms will have to consider the type of people they employ. Because if the law changes and security guards have the right to detain people, then we’re going to have to have security guards who are physically capable of doing it.   When I look around now at some of the security guards outside places like banks, for example, I can’t imagine some of them being capable of dragging someone to the ground and sitting on them until the cops arrive.   But as for the rest of us being allowed to make citizens arrests – forget about it. For many reasons.   For me, it’s not a particular line in the Crimes Act that stops me from intervening when I see someone breaking the law. I have never, and never will, make a citizen's arrest because I’ve got no idea what I’m taking on.   I’m not the largest person in the world, but even if I was, you’d never get me intervening. Because you just don't know what someone is on, what they’re capable of, and what weapon they might be carrying.   I had an experience recently where a guy, completely off his face on something, was assaulting another guy.   And straight away I thought ‘I’m not getting involved here’. And when I say not getting involved, I mean physically. It wasn’t the law stopping me - it was my own personal safety that stopped me.    I did stick around though, and I called the cops. But there was no way I was going to take him on, and there is no way I’d attempt any sort of citizen's arrest.   But I reckon the really dangerous aspect of this is the licence it would give muppets out there to take the law into their own hands.   You’ll know as much as me, that there are people who would just love to have the law on their side. Thinking they're Bodie and Doyle from The Professionals TV show.    And while I’m not one to stick up for criminals, I wouldn’t want them getting roughed up unnecessarily by the vigilante types who would see this law change as a licence to do whatever they wanted to detain someone.  What’s more, this law change would go completely against everything the police tell us about not intervening and putting ourselves in danger.   For the same reasons why I will never do it: you have no idea what someone is capable of doing, especially if they’re high on drugs, and you don’t know what weapons they might be carrying.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.