19 years jail for stealing $40,000

[trainspotter]

Reading the local paper here the other day and there was an article about a DRUNK DRIVER who had two (yes 2) lifetime bans and guess what, he was pulled over for DIU and no licence. The judge banned his licence for a further 9 months and gave him a $600 fine ! Oh yeah ... a 7 month jail sentence as well but suspended for 12 months. Hah ah aha ha ha hha haaaaaaaa ! What's the point? If this eeeeeeeeejit had killed someone whilst driving pissed then I am sure he would have got let off on some technicality ??

 

[Sdajii]

Reading the local paper here the other day and there was an article about a DRUNK DRIVER who had two (yes 2) lifetime bans and guess what, he was pulled over for DIU and no licence. The judge banned his licence for a further 9 months and gave him a $600 fine ! Oh yeah ... a 7 month jail sentence as well but suspended for 12 months. Hah ah aha ha ha hha haaaaaaaa ! What's the point? If this eeeeeeeeejit had killed someone whilst driving pissed then I am sure he would have got let off on some technicality ??

So they added nine months to a 200 year driving ban? Amazing he didn't asked them to extend it another 50 years in exchange for the $600 fine being dropped. If I am ever on the wrong side of the law I'll see if I can have a quadruple lifetime ban from owning a plumber's license as a penalty. These days you never know.

 

[Sdajii]

I have much much more contempt for country's with totalitarian regimes who throw people in places like "black prisons" in China, re-education camps or neo-gulags without trial and/or lawyers.

If you want to live in a country that denies legal representation to people then I suggest you move to China Bunyip. Hopefully then you'll wake up and realise what a great country Australia is and the fact that we do have a justice system that is transparent and while not perfect tries it best to uphold the rights of everyone. Or we could act like a bunch of totalitarian dictators and be the laughing stock of the world.

The fact that legal representation is guaranteed to offenders in Australia is an essential part of the democratic system. If you want justice to be served, then people need to go trial. It's as simple as that. If you don't like it then find another place to live.

What kind of idiotic mentality leads someone to look at a horrible excuse for a legal system, and rather than acknowledge severe flaws which are destroying countless lives, you simply find the worst example of another legal system and say "at least it's not as bad as that one"?

That's as insane as saying "I may have beaten her up and raped her, officer, but if you think I'm guilty you're wrong, because unlike many other rapists, at least I didn't kill her - they're the bad guys, I'm one of the good guys".

Something else being worse doesn't make a bad thing right. If some country in Africa has an even worse system than China's, will you then start defending China too? Look at the thing for what it is, don't just look for something worse! It's the mentality of people like you which leaves us stuck with these problems.

 

[WaveSurfer]

....I think capital punishment definitely has a place, and penalties should be more along the lines of community work (lots of it) rather than imprisonment.

Are you serious?

In the case of the old bitty getting brutalised for a measly $20, the perp should be locked away and NEVER allowed back into the community.

Better still, HANG HIM AND HANG HIM FRIGGEN HIGH. Cheaper, more effective and short 'n' sweet.

There's no room on this earth for that sort of scum, period.

 

[Sdajii]

Are you serious?

In the case of the old bitty getting brutalised for a measly $20, the perp should be locked away and NEVER allowed back into the community.

Better still, HANG HIM AND HANG HIM FRIGGEN HIGH. Cheaper, more effective and short 'n' sweet.

There's no room on this earth for that sort of scum, period.

Read my posts again. You actually quoted me saying I think capital punishment has a place. If people are penalised without being killed, I don't think jail is a good option, for the reasons I described. I don't think there is generally much point in putting someone in prison, especially if it is for life. Prison costs money and generally turns a bad person into a worse person, or a good person into a bad person. If it is for life, it is a clear lose-lose situation. The only reason to give someone a life sentence in prison as opposed to execution is to burden our tax system, er, keep the squeamish public happy, or to allow for the possibility that they are actually innocent and might later be released. In cases of uncertain guilt, I think it would be much better to say "Well, we're not quite sure, so rather than imprison you and utterly destroy your life, you can go about things as usual, but we'll stick a tracker on you and you have to report to police every week" or something along those lines. If there is no doubt about guilt when it comes to unprovoked violent crimes, sure, don't hold back.

 

[Putty7]

We are looking at a planet that is is going to be over populised for the resources available in the near future, new technologies aside, why should we let the scum of the Earth live, breed and breath, why waste everyone elses oxygen on them, castrate rapists and anyone who takes a life forfeits their own, pretty simple really, I don't believe in religion so I don't believe it is playing God, simply playing by fairer rules.

 

[WaveSurfer]

Read my posts again. You actually quoted me saying I think capital punishment has a place. If people are penalised without being killed, I don't think jail is a good option, for the reasons I described. I don't think there is generally much point in putting someone in prison, especially if it is for life. Prison costs money and generally turns a bad person into a worse person, or a good person into a bad person. If it is for life, it is a clear lose-lose situation. The only reason to give someone a life sentence in prison as opposed to execution is to burden our tax system, er, keep the squeamish public happy, or to allow for the possibility that they are actually innocent and might later be released. In cases of uncertain guilt, I think it would be much better to say "Well, we're not quite sure, so rather than imprison you and utterly destroy your life, you can go about things as usual, but we'll stick a tracker on you and you have to report to police every week" or something along those lines. If there is no doubt about guilt when it comes to unprovoked violent crimes, sure, don't hold back.

Couldn't agree more with you there for the petty crime. Apologies for the misinterpretation.

 

[Sdajii]

We are looking at a planet that is is going to be over populised for the resources available in the near future, new technologies aside, why should we let the scum of the Earth live, breed and breath, why waste everyone elses oxygen on them, castrate rapists and anyone who takes a life forfeits their own, pretty simple really, I don't believe in religion so I don't believe it is playing God, simply playing by fairer rules.

Someone has to play god. Even if there is a god, if he is too lazy to do it himself someone has to do it for him.

 

[Atlas79]

We are looking at a planet that is is going to be over populised for the resources available in the near future, new technologies aside, why should we let the scum of the Earth live, breed and breath, why waste everyone elses oxygen on them, castrate rapists and anyone who takes a life forfeits their own, pretty simple really, I don't believe in religion so I don't believe it is playing God, simply playing by fairer rules.

Bollocks. Plenty of resources in space, more than we can ever use. If governments & the Kevin Rudds of the world step out of the way & let the markets get us there we will be fine.

But I agree about rapists and such.

 

[Julia]

Maybe we could look at forced and irreversible sterilisation of rapists too.

Happy, sterilising rapists wouldn't make the slightest difference. That just means they cannot make their victims pregnant. I suspect you mean castration, which I'd also contend would be ineffective.

Rape is much less about the sexual urge and much more about violence and control.

I agree with the suggestion that prison is usually unproductive, but it's what the majority of the population demand, and our politicians are too populist and/or apathetic to seriously look at alternatives.

One process which has been shown to have some positive results (though not in every instance) is victim-offender conferencing, where the parties meet in a suitably supervised situation and the victim explains in detail the effect the crime has had on their lives. Now, of course some criminals will just shrug their shoulders, but others will for the first time consider the effects of their actions.

That prison doesn't work can be shown by the high rates of recidivism, especially if the offending begins in a very young person.

Removing serious offenders from society is often going to be necessary, but it needs to be accompanied by some constructive programmes.
I remember reading an article a while back about a group of violent young offenders, jailed, who were given the responsibility of looking after an abused dog. It was their job to physically care for the dog, and to find ways of restoring the canine's confidence in human beings. They initially scoffed at such an idea, but when actually experiencing the presence of the dog, they quickly responded and the outcome was very good, for the offenders and the dog.

Maybe such programmes as having the responsibility of planning and caring for a prison garden which has to supply the vegetables for the inmates would be useful.

I may be quite wrong, but I think when people undertake responsibility for achieving a given outcome, they usually rise to the challenge.

Just sitting in a fairly comfortable jail cell with all meals, laundry, exercise, etc planned and provided can't be conducive to any improvement in self worth or optimism for the future.

 

[quinny]

2. Two young policemen in one of the southern states were called to sort out a man and his two sons who were drunk and disorderly outside a pub.
The drunks became violent when the police asked them to move on.
A violent scuffle ensued, and one of the offenders launched himself in a flying charge from behind one of the police, head-butted him in the back of the head, and left him brain damaged.
This particular case was featured in 'Australian Story' on TV recently.

The entire incident was filmed on security camera, with the footage being shown on Australian Story.

The offender got off scot free, as did his father and brother. They didn't even get a fine.
Meantime, the young policeman has been left with permanent brain damage.

I assume you are referring to the Matthew Butcher and the McLeods incident that happened in Perth a while back.
This incident had a HUGE impact on things here, it got us mandatory sentencing for attacking police, ambos and some others.
http://www.abc.net.au/local/audio/2009/09/22/2693127.htm

Also, from things I remember reading (there were conflicting stories), I am pretty sure there were more than two police and three men involved. Police also tried to taser an "innocent" (which was the father) and that was why he was attacked, allegedly. The McLeods were involved because they tried to help throw out another rowdy group from the pub.

This was a huge thing over here, it was in the media for a long time and there were protests and law changes. I think one of the McLeods got a fine.
Anyway, the point is, so many things happened because of this incident that I am not sure are all good (e.g. mandatory sentencing can be abused by the cops).

I personally don't think McLeod should've gotten off the charge of attacking the policeman but a JURY decided this, not a judge. So what can you do?

 

[Mofra]

If it is for life, it is a clear lose-lose situation. The only reason to give someone a life sentence in prison as opposed to execution is to burden our tax system, er, keep the squeamish public happy, or to allow for the possibility that they are actually innocent and might later be released.

It's also far cheaper to keep someone in prison for life than it is to execute them, considering the experience of one country that is as letigious as Australia that does have the death penalty; the US.

 

[bunyip]

I have much much more contempt for country's with totalitarian regimes who throw people in places like "black prisons" in China, re-education camps or neo-gulags without trial and/or lawyers.

If you want to live in a country that denies legal representation to people then I suggest you move to China Bunyip. Hopefully then you'll wake up and realise what a great country Australia is and the fact that we do have a justice system that is transparent and while not perfect tries it best to uphold the rights of everyone. Or we could act like a bunch of totalitarian dictators and be the laughing stock of the world.

The fact that legal representation is guaranteed to offenders in Australia is an essential part of the democratic system. If you want justice to be served, then people need to go trial. It's as simple as that. If you don't like it then find another place to live.

I'm not against a justice system that puts people on trial and allows them legal representation to see that they get a fair trial and that justice is served.
But all too often we see legal representatives deliberately perverting the cause of justice by getting violent offenders acquitted on the basis of some technicality, even when there's video evidence proving the defender's guilt.

You might think we have a great justice system when it allows violent criminals to walk free without punishment or conviction. I do not, and I'll continue to exercise my right of free speech by publicly criticising such a system.
And if that upsets you, Gumby, tough luck. If you find free speech so objectionable, then I suggest you follow your own advice and go and live in some other country that denies people the right of free speech.
Maybe Vietnam or China would suit you, where speaking out publicly can land you in prison for a decade or so.

I agree with Sadajii....it's absolutely idiotic of you to turn a blind eye to the shortcomings of our legal system, by comparing it to some other country whose legal system is even worse.

 

[bunyip]

I assume you are referring to the Matthew Butcher and the McLeods incident that happened in Perth a while back.
This incident had a HUGE impact on things here, it got us mandatory sentencing for attacking police, ambos and some others.
http://www.abc.net.au/local/audio/2009/09/22/2693127.htm

Also, from things I remember reading (there were conflicting stories), I am pretty sure there were more than two police and three men involved. Police also tried to taser an "innocent" (which was the father) and that was why he was attacked, allegedly. The McLeods were involved because they tried to help throw out another rowdy group from the pub.

This was a huge thing over here, it was in the media for a long time and there were protests and law changes. I think one of the McLeods got a fine.
Anyway, the point is, so many things happened because of this incident that I am not sure are all good (e.g. mandatory sentencing can be abused by the cops).

I personally don't think McLeod should've gotten off the charge of attacking the policeman but a JURY decided this, not a judge. So what can you do?

We can publicly criticise our legal system, we can lobby our MP's, we can write to newspapers, we can even try to become MP's ourselves if we feel strongly enough about making changes. If enough people express their dissatisfaction with the justice system, then and only then will some changes be made.
One of the worst things we can do is accept the system in its current form, shut up and say nothing.
Or worse still, adopt the brain-dead and totally irresponsible attitude that says 'Hey - you think our system is bad, go and live in some place like China and see how bad their system is'.

 

[WaveSurfer]

....Rape is much less about the sexual urge and much more about violence and control....

You're right about that Julia. Castration attempts to resolve both of those issues however (sexual urges and violent/aggressive behaviour). I don't think chemical castration is as effective as the body will find its own way around it - if it really wants to. Surgical castration through, removing the potential root cause of the problem altogether (the testes and the masses of testosterone they produce) could well be a viable solution. Shaft the ethical debate - do the crime, do the time I say.

We don't fully understand testosterone as of yet. But it certainly isn't hard to see that an overwhelming majority of sex offenders are male, and so are majority of the aggressors. There's something about boys and their testosterone filled toys.

 

[Smurf1976]

The problem is, if you stick someone in prison it costs the taxpayer a lot of money (if we were magically able to catch all the criminals we wouldn't come close to having the resources to imprison them all).

The underlying principle behind punishment is to deter people from committing the crime in the first place. If we sent 100% of criminals to prison and it were common knowledge that this occurred then we would have very, very few criminals.

 

[Sdajii]

The underlying principle behind punishment is to deter people from committing the crime in the first place. If we sent 100% of criminals to prison and it were common knowledge that this occurred then we would have very, very few criminals.

Deterrent is the only real benefit to prisons. We couldn't come anywhere near funding putting them all into prison though, even if we could magically catch them all. The reality is, criminals form a significant proportion of our community. If they make their money through crime they generally pay no income tax, but in many ways they are an integral part of the economy. They make their money and they then spend it like any other consumer. Many of them work part time or full time as well as their criminal activities. Removing them from the community means that they no longer spend, any legitimate part of their life is stopped, the community now needs to put a lot more money into them than it did when they were an active criminal, and if/when released they will probably be full time criminals even if they were previously only part time criminals.

In any case, death is probably at least as much of a deterrent as prison, and if we ran a system which allowed criminals the freedom to live in the outside world with tracking devices permanently attached, they could be all but prevented from committing further crimes (you would know exactly where and when they were, and if this coincided with any other crime you'd catch them pretty easily - there are further applications of gadgetry which would make this highly effective, but I won't fill several pages here getting into it), and on top of that they could be put to work for x hours per week for x months/years to pay back their debt to society. If anyone broke the requirements they were under in this situation they could be turned into glue or soylent green or similar.

I don't know how much use deterrents really are. In some cases, people are pathologically the way they are. They aren't like you or I, they don't necessarily consider their actions, they just go ahead and act on instinct. For these people at least, deterrents are completely irrelevant. With an expensive system such as what we have, the habitual criminals who do consider what they are doing know what a joke the legal system is, and they know that even if they are caught once in a while crime still pays. The magical system which allows all criminals to be caught and appropriately penalised is completely outside our possible budget - such a system would require more resources than Australia has in total, and obviously we need to keep putting resources into things like infrastructure, hospitals, schools, etc.

 

[Go Nuke]

Yeah we all know Australian courts are a bunch of soft cocks.

It disgusts me how soft we are on people who break the law. Eye for an eye works well for me. Or just cut a theifs hand off like they suposedly do in the middle east.

If that doesn't deter people...then I don't know what will!

 

[bunyip]

I've said it before on this forum, and it usually brings a reaction of 'it wouldn't work here'.
I'll say it again now....If you want to become proficient at something, learn from someone who's already proficient.
There's no better example than Singapore when it comes to crime control. It's one of the safest places in the world, with one of the lowest crime rates.
They don't muck around if you break the law in Singapore - they hit you and they hit you hard.

We should take a leaf out of their book by learning their methods and implementing them here. Our escalating crime rate would quickly be brought under control.
Law abiding citizens would control the streets, not criminals. Our neighbourhoods would be safe again.

Would it be restrictive to live in a society with such no-no-nonsense rules? I don't think so. I've spent time in Singapore. I was free to do the normal things that law abiding citizens do, and I was able to do them in safety.

 

[Trade wind]

Our justice system may not be perfect, but all these suggestions for hangings, castration, mulitalation and floggings makes me mighty glad we have courts and not mob rule.