Commissioner wrong

Sirs,—On the assumption that doctors sometimes forget what a healthy person looks like, someone should have asked the Commissioner of Police after his lunchtime talk on homosexuality and the law whether he had any doubts about the accuracy of his opinions on homosexuals. Could it be that sociologists, social workers and clergy know more about them and their problems than the police do because homosexuals are more likely to confide in them? Could it be that these trained people, who are well represented in the law reform movement, have contacts with a wider variety of homosexuals including those who have come to terms with themselves and with life?

The Commissioner was, in effect, judging the majority of society by the thieves and thugs, rioters and rapists whom it is his duty to prosecute when the evidence is available. The evidence—and evidence ought to be his business—is also available on many of the points he tried to make, but these facts are so different from his opinions that his case is not proven.

The Commissioner might also have been asked whether senior officers of the Justice Department agree with him and his outspoken officer at Christchurch. Some of us know the answer. He might be surprised at the advice given by many prison psychiatrists to homosexuals whom his officers have taken great trouble to convict, even to the extent of sometimes using decoys to tempt latent homosexuals—whom the Commissioner told us are not breaking any law—into being active ones who could then be arrested.