South Australian premier Mike Rann is investigating FBI gadgetry for use in the war against crime. Fair enough. Every bit helps. But we get a strong idea that SA police know who the offenders are anyway. They have been arrested and released again countless times.

Gadgets may help to catch them in the act but to what avail? The bottom line on crime control is that only the sending of a pointed message to the community through very stiff penalites, particularly for unprovoked crimes of hostility, violence or property destruction, will achieve anything worthwhile. Without that, catching offenders (time and time again!) is meaningless. The purchase of gadgetry will simply amount to more illusory showmanship on the part of a government that is unwilling to act proportionately to its talk.