Janet Malcolm’s The Journalist and the Murderer is an important and confronting book with a stunning opening line:

"Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible".

Malcolm deals with ideas around deceit and reporting. It is equally important for all writers (and researchers) of non-fiction. Basically Malcolm examines the true story of Joe McGinniss, a writer, who befriended Jeffrey McDonald, a convicted murderer proclaiming his innocence. The writer doesn’t believe MacDonald’s story but tells him that he does so he can inveigle his way into McDonald’s life and write a bestseller. 

He does this by feigning a deep friendship over many years and the deceit is only unraveled by the book’s publication when the murderer is confronted in a television interview with the underlying truth that his closest friend was actually his worst enemy. It was an ugly betrayal. 

The premise of the book is the responsibility of the author to the subject, and this issue is important to me as I explore the subject of murder and begin to hang out with and interview murderers (and importantly victims, for that matter), but I find the idea that somehow all researchers are parasites is flawed. 

Ethics in research and writing are not new to me. Patched was a project rife with ethical dilemmas. I have never publically discussed my fieldwork in anything other than perfunctory ways – mindful that some stories may quickly change the focus from my results to my research techniques. 

Telling (hypothetical) stories of me behind the wheel of a stolen car, removing fingerprints from guns being unloaded from a boot, perverting the course of justice, or drug dealing may raise the odd eyebrow.

But one topic about which I can rest assured was my fastidious approach to protecting my sources. Regardless of who they were and what the situation, what I saw or what I was told was never disclosed if I thought it would compromise those involved.

The writer in Janet Malcolm’s book did not feel like he owed a duty to the murderer he ‘befriended’ arguing that the ugly nature of his crimes (he was convicted of brutally murdering his children and pregnant wife) meant deceit was warranted to uncover the truth. The ends, he argued, justified the means.

But the ‘end’ in my view, is not just the book that the writer produces. It is bigger than that. How a researcher behaves doesn’t just reflect on them, but their peers too and in no small part it also impacts on their discipline generally.

If people who agree to assist in research – particularly regarding sensitive subjects – are burnt or betrayed by researchers, who will volunteer to help with future research, even that undertaken by others? The well from which we gather knowledge runs dry.

Research ethics, like ethics more generally, are not for selected use and must be applied equally. In this way, while they may have lost it from all others in society, murderers deserve respect from researchers. 

Malcolm’s book is an important and confronting one that does have a stunning opening line, but I don’t agree with her that to greater or lesser extents we are all narks. I learned that you can sleep well at night having gained all of the information you need, and have done that in a way that does not betray people. And given my topics are gangs and murderers, that’s a very good thing.

I am a firefighter. That’s actually true. At Station 28 in Sumner I am Senior Firefighter Gilbert. I was for a short time known as Cuddles but I threw my toys out of the cot at that moniker and the boys let it slip.

I joined the brigade just less than seven years ago. And while I’ve had a few moments of drama in that time – the earthquakes scarred a bit – without doubt my greatest night was when I rescued a dog. There are two versions of my dog story. There’s the one that is the truth and there’s the one I tell at the pub to impress women. I will tell you one of them.

It’s important to note that I actually have a bit of history with animal rescue. The first call I went on as a probationary firefighter was a cat up a tree – I kid you not. And the first call I went to as a fully-qualified firefighter was to a seagull that had tangled itself in fishing line and a power pole. So coincidental were these incidents that I began to think the animals of Sumner were becoming rather reckless: secure in the knowledge I would rescue them.

That was not the case with the dog.

The dog was a captive. He had been placed in a cage overnight (an apparently regular incarceration) as his owners slept. This was all well and good before the dishwasher caught fire. While the human beings, alerted to danger by the pitch of the smoke alarm, could rush from the house, the dog could do little more than curse his misfortune.

That’s where I come in.

It’s difficult to describe what it’s like entering a burning house. The flames are no real problem - you’re well equipped for that - it’s the visibility that really does you in. Your breathing apparatus gives you a face full of fresh air whenever you breath in – rapidly in these situations.  The thick black smokes means visibility is very nearly nothing. It’s completely pitch black, hot and disorientating. And then there’s the matter of the dog to rescue.

I could hear him, of course, barking away at this terrible state of affairs but finding what I was now calling ‘the little fucker’ was very difficult. My partner was merrily putting water on the orange stuff while I was searching. As per the NZFS National Commander’s instructions I was making wide sweeps with the back of my outstretched hand and my front leg. Consequently the National Commander was responsible for me destroying the television, a laptop and every vase and ornament in what I was picking was the lounge.  Still no dog.

Then the little fucker stopped barking.

That’s not a good sign, I thought as the National Commander put my sweeping front foot through a glass cabinet. But I doubled my searching efforts and subsequently the National Commander went quite berserk smashing everything that could be smashed and several things that may have ordinarily been deemed unsmashable.

Then the little fucker found me. I tripped over the cage and heard the dog whimper, which at least meant he was still alive. I picked him up, cage and all, and headed for the exit, which unfortunately meant I had to retrace my steps. Everything I had kicked, hand-slapped and bumped into was now banging against the cage and reverberating through the body of my smoky little friend. It was the dog equivalent of being quite pleased to be taken from Guantanamo Bay only to find yourself whisked off to Turkey to be tortured.

Then I was at the door, where the Chief Fire Officer was waiting. At which point he leaned in, grabbed the cage and darted to the deliriously happy family with the dog, who in the fresh air recovered rather quickly. In doing so, the Chief took the glory. All of it. And this is why I have to tell this story at the pub to gain the praise that is quite rightfully mine. In my pub story I change the name from ‘the little fucker’ to Lassie. I say that after pulling it from the inferno I administered it oxygen, gave it CPR and undertook some minor open-heart surgery. I also say that it was a Seeing Eye dog and that it was connected to its owner when I pulled it from the building.

I am yet to successfully woo a woman by telling that story.

Gangs make great targets for politicians. Their anti-social stance, sometimes violent activities and their links to profit-driven crime seem fit for action. More pertinently, though, their high profile nature means gangs offer something extremely alluring – that being the politician's drug of choice: votes.

Perceived wisdom seems to be, hammer the gangs and gain electoral advantage.

The latest to do this is Queensland Premier Campbell Newman, who is enacting numerous measures to counter the state’s outlaw clubs or the ‘bikies’ as the Aussies like to call them.

These legislative measures are a rare mix of the serious and the laughable, perhaps best summed up by the name of the newly passed ‘Vicious Lawless Association Disestablishment Act 2013’. When a piece of legislation is given a name like that, you know that politics is playing a big part. George Orwell couldn’t have dreamed it up.

Under this law, if you commit crimes in association with an outlaw club you will be declared a ‘vicious lawless associate’ and get 15 years on top of the sentence given for the crime. In this way you are not being punished for what you do, nor even who you are, but simply for who you associate with.

But that’s not the end. If the offender is an office holder (president, secretary etc) of the outlaw club, on top of the 15 years that is put on the original sentence, they get another 10 years for good measure.

Take a drug crime, for example, that might ordinarily deliver a person a couple of years in prison. Under this legislation, the above offender must serve 27 years.

When Cesare Beccaria developed the philosophical underpinnings of Western justice in the 1700s, he deemed that punishment should be proportionate to the crime. He argued that lopping off a hand for stealing bread was a bit excessive. And while the state of Queensland isn’t proposing to take limbs, it is proposing grossly disproportionate sentences are served in a dedicated biker prison under 23-hour lock up. This is clearly a sharp departure from a long-heralded and protected tenet of civilised criminal justice.

But you don’t have to be committing crimes to be affected. Just associating with a bikie can be enough to see you locked up for a minimum of six months, while a further measure bans club members from owning or working in tattoo studios – and these are set to be widened to include car yards and elements of the security industry.

The right to freely associate and engage in lawful business is a basic principle of democratic societies. But laws like this bring these important philosophical underpinnings under direct attack.

And while these are couched as ‘bikie laws’ few people seem to care much that fundamental rights are being eroded, because it’s only the bikies so who cares? Such a position fails to appreciate the fact that when such laws are on the books they can be used beyond the original intent. In New Zealand we have the example of terrorism laws brought in after 9/11 being used against a rag tag bunch of fantasist idiots in the Ureweras. That was never, ever envisaged when the legislation was passed.

Furthermore, the Queensland laws have some troubling definitional elements and involve a great degree of subjectivity. There is absolutely no hearing or trial before an organisation is deemed criminal: they are simply declared to be such. Of course this means there is no way to mount a defence, which flies in the face of justice and creates a Kafkaesque nightmare. Further still, who is deemed an associate of these groups is most unclear. By way of example, I still keep the company of a number of gangs and gang members. If I did that in Queensland, would I be deemed an ‘associate’? If so, that’s clearly absurd. But chances are I wouldn’t be because I don’t fit the stereotype. And if that’s the case these laws will not be used universally but only against people deemed undesirable by police and prosecutors. You don’t need to be a philosopher to find that rather troubling. Arbitrariness in application of laws should always ring alarm bells. 

While we should all be concerned around creeping police and state powers and the erosion of important rights, these fears are sometimes overplayed. My fundamental argument is much more basic than all of that. My point is that the laws are simply unnecessary.

These great powers are not a valid reaction to a grave and pressing threat. Instead they are driven by an over-inflated fear and a wilful lack of understanding by politicians – the same reasons the laws have the majority support of the public.

The outlaw clubs in Australia, as is the case here from time-to-time, have been inflated into something that they are not. Are they troublesome? Yes. Are they a grave threat? No.

This should not be read as a defence of gangs. When such groups or their members commit crimes – like the violent incidents that sparked this legislative onslaught – they will get no sympathy from me. The same applies if they are dealing drugs or undertaking other criminal behaviour but there is plenty of existing legislation to deal with these matters. Plenty. Therefore, when draconian legislation like this is proposed, the greater danger is from the slick and ignorant politicians than from the scruffy and arrogant bikies.

Many people have asked me if laws such as these could come to New Zealand. The answer is yes. Since the lead up to the 1972 national election when Norman Kirk promised to ‘take the bikes off the bikies’ politicians have used gangs to their advantage. Most notably this occurred around the 1996 election when swathes of legislation was drafted and passed, including one provision to stop and search vehicles without a warrant that police had previously asked for twice as a general law enforcement tool and been turned down. When it was couched as a ‘gang law’ parliament gave them the power. I’d be prepared to take a very big bet that since then that law has been used hundreds of times more often on non-gang members than those in gangs.

Once laws are on the books they get used. Furthermore, we very rarely take them back. And this is why we should move with caution and wisdom, two elements politicians are rarely known for.

When my high school decided they’d had enough of me, I went and studied advertising. I was 17 and I didn’t know my arse from my elbow.

Nevertheless, I won an internship at Walkers Advertising agency on Quay Street in Auckland. It was flash. I was not. It wasn’t a match made in heaven but a copywriter there named Peter Grace took an interest in me and saw a bit of talent. He must have been looking pretty bloody hard.

Anyway, one day I rolled in and told him I’d been offered a job as a ‘gopher’ at the New Zealand Herald. He told me that job would destroy my creativity and that I should turn it down. After a couple of days I took his advice and came up with a new plan. I was going to go to the small Canterbury town of Leeston, live in an old, dilapidated house deserted many years previous by my grandfather, and write a novel. Peter was not impressed. 

He said I didn’t have the discipline to write a novel: “If you go down there you’ll become an alcoholic, a brilliant alcoholic, but an alcohol nonetheless”. I told him I was going anyway. He wished me luck and said that I should at least enroll at university. That, he suggested, would give me focus. 

Exactly how he thought university environs would inhibit my drinking habits remains a mystery but after a long summer doing very little writing and much hitchhiking around the South Island I decided to take his advice and I signed up at the University of Canterbury.

I started in English and philosophy but after discovering that dissecting poetry steals its beauty and that determinism removes free will, I graduated in sociology and political science. Then, after creating havoc as the student president for a couple of years, I embarked on a PhD, which took far too long and toward the end seemed like it might get the better of me.

It didn’t and the result was PATCHED and now I’m starting my new project on murder. And for all of the people who helped and assisted me it was the words of Peter Grace that started it all. I have not seen Peter since the day he gave me that advice. If anybody knows him, please let him know that I couldn’t be more grateful. And that I’m not sure I became a brilliant alcoholic, but I am still trying.

Regards, Jarrod.
@JarrodGilbertNZ