Sentencing in Australia is a disgrace

[bunyip]

In a house in a residential area closeby to a well-funded public school and local facilities. Thats where most human beings live.

You don't think they'd shoot through, or get smuggled out by relatives or family friends or sympathisers?

And is it really our responsibility to provide schooling and housing for kids who are here illegally?
Seems to me we're hard pressed to adequately provide these facilities and services for our own citizens. I can't see that we're under any obligation to provide them to illegal immigrants, even if they're kids.

 

[bunyip]

Jail is not the place for people who are mentally ill.

Once upon a time we had functional psychiatric institutions with secure wings where people whose violent behaviour made them unsafe to be at large were kept. Better for them and better for the community.

The whole experiment of 'treating mentally ill people within the community' has been a dismal failure.

It certainly has, Julia.
Yet the authorities refuse to face up to that fact, continue to close down the psychiatric institutions and attempt to rehabilitate the inmates and put them back in the community.

The story of the Yorkshire Ripper is typical of the thinking here in Australia. Some moron who is big on professional qualifications but small on common sense, decides that some horrifically violent offender like Peter Sutcliffe, (the Ripper) can function normally while he's on medication.
And so a recommendation is made that he be released back into society.
Such a stupid decision doesn't take into account that many of these people just don't continue taking their medication unless they're incarcerated and are under constant supervision.

I have a relative who once worked as a mental health nurse in the Acute Psychiatric Unit of a large regional hospital. She can tell countless stories of patients who were readmitted to hospital time after time because they stopped taking their medication as soon as they were released, or in some cases got on booze and illicit drugs while taking their medication, went completely off their heads, and committed further crimes.

It almost beggars belief that those who are responsible for deciding what to do with people, continue with policies and strategies that are just not working.

 

[bunyip]

Story on the midday news just now that some US states are looking at abolishing the death penalty in favour of life imprisonment.
Apparently it's related to finances, more specifically, how the global economic crisis is stretching the budgets of US states to the extent that they can no longer afford the death penalty.
The claim is that execution costs more than life imprisonment. Very difficult to believe.

Pity we don't re-introduce the death penalty here in Australia. I can't see how it wouldn't be a lot cheaper than keeping those animals in jail for many decades.

 

[MrBurns]

Story on the midday news just now that some US states are looking at abolishing the death penalty in favour of life imprisonment.
Apparently it's related to finances, more specifically, how the global economic crisis is stretching the budgets of US states to the extent that they can no longer afford the death penalty.
The claim is that execution costs more than life imprisonment. Very difficult to believe.

Pity we don't re-introduce the death penalty here in Australia. I can't see how it wouldn't be a lot cheaper than keeping those animals in jail for many decades.

That cant be right doesnt cost a lot to kill someome but it does to feed them for 20 years.

Life in prison should mean life not the limp wristed perversions of justice handed out here.

 

[MrBurns]

Speechless..............

Anger after child rapist walks free
Posted 28 minutes ago
Updated 21 minutes ago

Map: South Grafton 2460
The New South Wales Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) may heed pressure from both sides of politics to appeal against a decision to let a man who raped a four-year-old girl walk free.

The 24-year old man pleaded guilty last month to breaking into a house near South Grafton, on the state's north coast, and sexually assaulting a girl as she slept in 2007.

He was given a two-year suspended sentence in Sydney's Downing Centre District Court, after spending at least 14 months in remand awaiting his trial.

NSW Attorney-General John Hatzistergos says he is seeking urgent advice from the DPP on the prospects of an appeal.

Shadow attorney-general Greg Smith SC says the "manifestly inadequate sentence" needs to be overturned.

"I just can't understand what possesses someone to give such a light sentence," he said.

A spokeswoman for the DPP says the department is waiting for remarks from the sentencing judge and will consider an appeal within the next few weeks.

 

[pilots]

Watch and see if he blames it on drugs or booze.

 

[Happy]

In another article State Attorney-General John Hatzistergos said that maximum penalty is 25 years.

And I can almost understand why some might again appeal severity of their sentences for rape.

From ABC, 3 Mar. 09
CHILD RAPIST WALKS FREE, DPP APPEALS

The New South Wales Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) will appeal against the two-year suspended sentence given to a man who raped a four-year-old girl in the state's north.
The 24-year-old man pleaded guilty in a Sydney court last month to breaking into a house north of Grafton and sexually assaulting the girl as she slept in 2007.
He was allowed to walk free from court last month, after spending at least 14 months in remand awaiting his trial.
State Attorney-General John Hatzistergos says the DPP will argue that the sentence is manifestly inadequate.
"The maximum penalty that is available for sexually assaulting a child under the age of 10 is 25 years. The standard minimum sentence is 15 years," he said.
"It's important that those signposts are kept in mind because that reflects the strong abhorrence that the community has to crimes of this nature."
Shadow attorney-general Greg Smith SC also spoke out against the sentence this morning.
"I just can't understand what possesses someone to give such a light sentence," he said.
Earlier today, a spokeswoman for the DPP said the department was waiting for remarks from the sentencing judge and would consider an appeal within the next few weeks.

 

[bunyip]

It seems that some judges are just not up to the responsibility of making intelligent decisions regarding what sentences are appropriate.
What's the solution then - take the decisions out of the judges hands?
Let the jury decide the sentence?
Let the victim or the family of the victim decide the sentence?

Occasionally a victim or their family are the forgiving kind who say - "The culprit has already suffered enough, everyone makes mistakes, we forgive them, let them walk free."
So I guess that rules out letting victims or their families decide on appropriate penalties.
Given that juries are considered qualified to judge someone guilty or innocent, then perhaps they're also qualified to decide what sentence is imposed. Surely they can't do any worse than the judges.
It certainly appears that we have to stop relying on judges if we want to get decent justice for victims, while at the same time providing some very frightening deterrents for those who think they can break the law.

 

[MrBurns]

Judges are dictated to by the Law, they act on precedent, previous sentences.
What needs to happen is the LAW needs to be changed so judges are compelled to dole out more appropriate sentences.

In some cases they have that option but dont exercise it because they HAVE to take into account mitigating circumstances such as remorse, this is bull**** and should be abolished.

Double the size of the jails and throw every smart **** crim and thug and just leave them there so people can walk the streets at night again.

 

[Julia]

In addition to addressing inappropriate sentencing, and considering changes to the law, don't we have to also look at why violence is increasing exponentially?

The obvious answer is the very question we're discussing, i.e. insufficient deterrent, but this violence is extending to little kids in prep (about 4 and 5 year olds) who are attacking their classmates. They're hardly likely to be figuring out that they can do it with impunity because there's no legal redress against such behaviour.

So why is this happening? Have parents failed to set boundaries about behaviour? Do kids as young as this get the violence concept from TV?

Are these kids manipulating their parents? A psychologist I know has cut three hours off her working day so she can collect her 5 year old from prep. She was advised that he could not remain with the after 2pm limited staffing because his aggression towards the other kids is so great that he needs to have a staff member with him every moment .
The psychologist mother says at home there are no problems with his behaviour at all. A bit ironic when the child of a psychologist and a mental health unit director is indulging in uncontrollable behaviour.

 

[MrBurns]

In addition to addressing inappropriate sentencing, and considering changes to the law, don't we have to also look at why violence is increasing exponentially?

So why is this happening? Have parents failed to set boundaries about behaviour? Do kids as young as this get the violence concept from TV?

.

We follow the USA, everyone wants to be a black rap crim these days.

Some take extensive martial arts courses thats why these so many deaths from fights now.

Too much grog and not enough law -

Pubs arent allowed to serve drunks but they do it all day every day, the police do nothing.

 

[Sir Osisofliver]

I agree with the sentiment that we should be looking at root causes behind these violent crimes, but lets not bury our head in the sand here. There is an issue now, and the sort of social engineering required to maybe fix the problems enough to reduce these types of crimes does not happen swiftly.

So what do we do with the current crop of people who haven't figured out that if you can't play nice with others, you don't get to belong on the team? Tougher sentencing is perhaps the only thing that can be done.

Quite frankly crimes against children sicken me and I'd like to see some of the US sentencing laws as they apply to crimes against children in force here. Eg In certain states in the U.S. I underdstand if you commit a sexual act against a child under the age of 10 it is MANDATORY life imprisonment. No bleeding heart Judge can lower that sentence because it is a mandatory minimum sentence enshrined in the law.

Mental health here in Australia is also a complete joke. One of my wife's family recently changed her depression medication which triggered a psychotic break. She didn't sleep for almost ten days, was violent towards family members (we had to move the kids out for week) and she generally went round the bend. Given that she was in no condition to admit herself - her husband was required to call the police to forcibily remove her (in handcuffs I might add) to hospital - where they booted her out of the system in less than two weeks (far too quickly) and are treating her as an outpatient.

Where the hell are the mental health hospitals anymore?

Anyway - enough griping from me.

Sir O

 

[nulla nulla]

It certainly has, Julia.
Yet the authorities refuse to face up to that fact, continue to close down the psychiatric institutions and attempt to rehabilitate the inmates and put them back in the community.

The story of the Yorkshire Ripper is typical of the thinking here in Australia. Some moron who is big on professional qualifications but small on common sense, decides that some horrifically violent offender like Peter Sutcliffe, (the Ripper) can function normally while he's on medication.
And so a recommendation is made that he be released back into society.
Such a stupid decision doesn't take into account that many of these people just don't continue taking their medication unless they're incarcerated and are under constant supervision.

I have a relative who once worked as a mental health nurse in the Acute Psychiatric Unit of a large regional hospital. She can tell countless stories of patients who were readmitted to hospital time after time because they stopped taking their medication as soon as they were released, or in some cases got on booze and illicit drugs while taking their medication, went completely off their heads, and committed further crimes.

It almost beggars belief that those who are responsible for deciding what to do with people, continue with policies and strategies that are just not working.

A current example of the "sick" persons inability to self medicate after reinstatement in the community is the woman released from the immigration cente and compensated for her wrongful internment. Can't immediately recall her name but her most recent escapade, after being evicted from Germany and banned from Turkey, was to be arrested in Jordan.

 

[Julia]

Cordelia Rau.

 

[Happy]

It did not happen in Australia, but if it did result would be identical.

We all are just sitting ducks in mercy of some crim, mental or youth.

From ABC 6 Mar. 09
NO JAIL FOR CANADIAN BUS BEHEADER

A mentally ill man who beheaded and then cannibalised a fellow passenger on a Greyhound bus last year cannot be held responsible for his actions, and will be housed indefinitely in a secure mental institution, a Canadian court has ruled.
Justice John Scurfield agreed with lawyers who said Vincent Weiguang Li, 40, was suffering from a major mental illness when he attacked a sleeping passenger on the bus in July last year, stabbing him dozens of times in the back and chest.

Li later held up the severed head of the victim, Tim McLean, and as police watched from outside the bus, he continued to mutilate the body and eat some of the remains.
Mr McLean was on his way home to Winnipeg from a job as a carnival worker in Edmonton, western Canada.

Dr Stanley Yaren, the only witness for the prosecution, told the court that Li said he heard voices from God in his head telling him to kill McLean. He described Li as a "decent person" suffering from untreated schizophrenia, with a strong chance of recovery.
"He thought that Mr McLean was an evil entity, that if he didn't kill Mr McLean, Mr McLean would kill him," said Li's lawyer, Alan Libman.

"If Mr Li, because of a mental illness, believed that he was defending himself, he didn't know what he was doing was wrong.
"And if someone doesn't know what they're doing is wrong, we don't punish them."
Debra Parkes, a law professor at University of Manitoba, noted that Li will stay indefinitely in a secure psychiatric hospital, subject to reviews, and this might give him a longer period in custody than a murderer sentenced to jail time.
The court also heard of a 2005 incident in which police picked Li up walking down an Ontario highway and Li said he was "following the sun."
He was briefly hospitalised and given medication for schizophrenia, but he denied he had a problem and left the hospital.
-Reuters

 

[Happy]

From ABC 6 Mar. 09

SCHIZOPHRENIA SUFFERER NOT GUILTY OF STABBING MURDER
By Rebecca Barrett

A New Zealand man has been found not guilty by reason of mental illness over the stabbing murder of a 60-year-old man in north-west Sydney last year.
Sixty-year-old Josef Maskiewicz was found stabbed to death inside his Castle Hill home in February last year.
Clinton Dion Moko Moko was charged with Mr Maskiewicz's murder and extradited from New Zealand last March.
At the start of his Supreme Court trial, 35-year-old Moko Moko pleaded not guilty by reason of mental illness.
The prosecution has told the court the Crown case relied on admissions of guilt made by Moko Moko to his wife and psychiatrist.
But Justice Bruce James found Moko Moko did not know what he was doing because his reasoning was defective due to a disease of the mind.
Moko Moko is being treated for paranoid schizophrenia and will stay in jail until the Mental Health Review Tribunal decides on his future.

We’ve got one too, no beheading only murder, but same result.

Attacked person not alive, perpetrator free to kill once Mental Health Review Tribunal decides to let Moko Moko go.

 

[GumbyLearner]

Finding justice

http://www.theage.com.au/national/finding-justice-20090305-8q3i.html

"In the case of a young offender, there can hardly ever be any conflict between the public interest and that of the offender. The public have no greater interest than that he should become a good citizen. The difficult task of the court is to determine what treatment gives the best chance of realising that objective."English judgement from Principles of Sentencing by D. A. Thomas.

THIS morning in the Melbourne County Court, four young men will be sentenced to prison for committing callous crimes against a harmless man. A fifth co-offender, one of two teenagers, will almost certainly suffer the same punishment soon for his involvement in the now-notorious arson attack on Richard Plotkin.

Many familiar with the case are likely to complain that the sentences, whatever their length, won't be long enough.

A soft target, Plotkin, 60, was left near death and horribly scarred in the attack that destroyed his home and independence. It is this loss of the life he once enjoyed and the ability to function autonomously in his community at Rosebud that he misses most.

 

[Happy]

FOUR JAILED FOR SETTING MAN ALIGHT
From ABC 6 Mar. 09
By Liz Hobday

In Victoria, four Mornington Peninsula men who set an elderly man on fire have each been sentenced to five years in jail.

Tyson Jessen, 19, Richard Findlay, Allan Walters, and Adam Taylor, all in their 20s, threw petrol on mentally-ill man Irving Plotkin, and set him on fire.
Mr Plotkin was critically injured and his Rosebud house, south-east of Melbourne, was destroyed.
They pleaded guilty to arson and conduct endangering life.
Judge Barbara Cotterell said their crimes were horrifying and the attack left Mr Plotkin scarred and disfigured.

The court heard Mr Plotkin's eyelids and lips had to be removed, and it was highly likely his ears would need to be amputated.
Judge Barbara Cotterell said their conduct was disgraceful and horrifying.
Jessen, Walters and Taylor broke down as they were sentenced but Findlay showed no emotion.
The court heard they had been threatened in jail and were under protection.
They will serve a non-parole period of three years.
Co-defendant James Dingle is yet to be sentenced.

Cheap as fried chips, 5 years = 3, according to wisdom of Judge Barbara Cotterell

 

[Happy]

VETERAN BASHED FOR 50 CENTS, ATTACKER JAILED
From ABC 6 Mar. 09

A Sydney man has been sentenced to at least 15 months in jail for bashing an 83-year-old war veteran over 50 cents.
Sutherland Local Court heard 30-year-old Kristopher Cowie approached Ernest Evans at Carringbah, in southern Sydney, last October and asked for the money.
The court was told Mr Evans was punched at least three times in the face when he refused to hand over 50 cents.

Cowie was found guilty of assault occasioning actual bodily harm last October.
He was sentenced to a maximum of two years' jail today.
The 30-year-old will spend a minimum 15 months behind bars and be eligible for parole in April 2011

3 punches + 50 cents = 2 years = err actually 1 year and 3 months

Since jails have fitness equipment, in 15 months time Kristopher might be able to punch much harder.

 

[bunyip]

One of the lowest people ever to pollute Queensland with his presence, paedophile Dennis Ferguson, was today acquitted of molesting a 5 year old girl within a few weeks of his release from prison after serving a lengthy sentence for an earlier offence. Ferguson became Queensland's most loathed person when he was found guilty of abducting three siblings and holding them in a motel room for four days while he repeatedly raped them. From memory the kids were aged between three and seven years at the time.
The latest charge against him was dismissed because of inconclusive evidence.
It disgusts me that this grubby little apology for a human being was ever released from prison.....all because some idiotic person/s with more professional qualifications than common sense, thought he deserved a second chance.
Only a justice system that's downright pathetic releases a man who imprisons and rapes three little children for four days.
When Ferguson was put behind bars they should have left him there for the rest of his miserable life. Better still, cut off his head or hang him.
Now we sit back and wait for the next poor innocent little kid to fall victim to Dennis the menace.