We can do better
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The Maori language?
Point of order.
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please explain
How many indigenous Australian languages are there?
Would you like to be on the board to choose the one?
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The sniveling Weasel is Dog Whistling LAW & ORDER and continuing the fear campaign, ⌠and advocating the proven failed policy of Mandatory Sentencing, ⌠yes, that AGAIN!
I donât mind the idea of mandatory sentencing.
For some things.
All you left-green-weeklyâŚsorry, I donât know how to do thisâŚ
Murder?
Proven, pre-planned, morality-free murder?
Hell yes, that should have a minimum sentence.
Robbery under arms?
I apologise for the antiquated language and I hope it doesnât get in the way, but the victims think theyâre going to die.
â â â â yes that should have a mandatory sentence.
What I donât want to see is any sort of three strikes policy, where someone gets ten years for stealing a Mars Bar.
Thatâs messed up.
100s I think.
My misunderstanding - I thought you were suggesting there were several Maori languages.
I confess to being a bit antsy coming up to Australia Day again.
And I read the most fucktarded tweets from a Perovian-Australian Sociologist yesterday which has â â â â â â me off even further.
But even so, a little common sense, please.
Why doesnât Australia have one Indigenous language that they teach in schools like NZ?
Is it because Turnbull is racist?
Or is it because you are very nearly euthanasia-justifiably stupid?
Except it doesnât work in reducing Crime, never has, and study upon study, not to mention something as basic as actual figures have proven it, ⌠but, as is always the case with rightards like the Weasel, ⌠facts are completely lost on them. Even the exact opposite effect it had in Victoria the last time they got into office is completely lost on themâŚ
Yes, ⌠it is that recent and familiar âŚ
hrlc.org.au
Mandatory jail terms are not the way to cut crime
April 18, 2017
5-6 minutes
This piece was first published in the Herald Sun.
We need to take action to cut crime in Victoria, but the proposal from the Opposition Leader, Matthew Guy, to introduce new mandatory minimum jail terms is the wrong approach. It will be costly, ineffective and lead to injustice.
Mandatory sentencing produces injustice because it makes it harder for the courts to ensure the punishment fits the crime.
In Victoria, we already have mandatory jail for gross violence such as recklessly causing serious injury in a group attack or after the victim is incapacitated. Sounds reasonable doesnât it? It does until you realise that politicians simply canât predict all the circumstances that might be captured â which is why judges need some discretion.
For example take the three friends in 2013 who saw a man punch a woman unconscious in Bourke Street. The friends helped the woman and then chased the man and confronted him. They kicked and punched him including a kick after he was on the ground and he suffered a fractured skull. The judge recognised the good intentions of the men but warned against taking the law into their own hands. Because of the circumstances, she didnât impose a conviction or a jail term. But if the assault had happened after the gross violence laws came into force, she could have been forced to give them minimum four year jail terms.
Frustratingly Matthew Guyâs announcement has a real groundhog day feel to it. Weâve been here before and weâve made these mistakes before.
In 2010, claiming that Victorians were âsick and tired of seeing offenders receive hopelessly inadequate sentences time and time againâ, the Coalition Opposition promised a raft of so-called tough on crime policies and were elected to office.
They introduced baseline sentences and mandatory minimum sentences for gross violence. They abolished suspended sentences and home detention and made it harder to get bail, meaning more people are locked up waiting their trial. They restricted parole, meaning more prisoners are serving their full sentence and being released straight into the community without the conditions, supervision and reporting requirements that parole involves.
At the same time, they cut funding for TAFE, vocational high school qualifications (VCAL and VET) and housing support programs.
The results? After dropping every year for a decade under the Bracks and Brumby Governments, crime went up and has continued to rise every year since.
After dropping every year for 8 years, reoffending rates have risen sharply since 2010/11. Prisoner numbers skyrocketed, rising almost 40% between 2011 and 2016. Police and prison spending skyrocketed. The Auditor-General and the Ombudsman both warned about prison overcrowding and lack of access to prisoner programs that reduce risks of reoffending.
With results like these you think the Coalition might have learned a lesson. Instead, weâve got promises of a new âtough approachâ with mandatory jail terms and more announcements to come.
Promises like these arenât tough. Theyâre lazy. Itâs easy for a politician who wants to appear to be tackling crime to promise new offences, more jail time and reduced court discretion.
This is exactly what happened in the US from the 1970âs onwards, leading to mass imprisonment and acute impacts on African American and other communities. But things are changing there and itâs not just coming from progressive politicians. Conservative US lawmakers, concerned about the ineffectiveness and cost of ever longer jail terms, are supporting new approaches like âjustice reinvestmentâ.
Justice reinvestment directs funding away from prisons towards programs that prevent crime. In Texas, these approaches cut prison numbers and redirected savings to crime prevention initiatives. Crime has gone down and other states are replicating Texasâ success.
This is the direction Victoria should head. We need to combat the things that fuel crime. The evidence from criminologists around the world is clear â the most effective way to cut crime is to tackle its causes, like child neglect, poor education, poor housing and alcohol and substance abuse. This is where our focus should be - on preventing crime, not responding after the damage is done.
Victoriaâs Royal Commission into Family Violence made important recommendations to prevent family violence. To its credit, the Andrews Government is implementing them and devoting substantial resources to the task. The Royal Commission chose not to recommend mandatory sentences, noting the âevidence on the limited effectiveness of imprisonment as a means of deterring offenders, rehabilitating offenders and reducing crimeâ.
Mandatory jail terms are a blunt and costly way to reduce crime. Everyone knows that violent crime has devastating consequences on individuals and communities, but mandatory sentences are the wrong tool for the job.
The Coalition should abandon mandatory jail terms and start working on policies that will actually prevent crime from happening in the first place.
Hugh de Kretser is the Executive Director of the Human Rights Law Centre @hughdekretser
Gonna confess straight away, I didnât read past âdoesnât deter crime.â
Farkinâ deters crime from one guy for ten years, though, doesnât it.
Is there stuff in there that Iâd be interested in past that?
Deterrence is maybe one third of the point of punishment.
But again, stealing a Mars Bar?
Hell, stealing a semi-trailer full of Mars Bars while no-oneâs looking?
Fine.
Donât do it again.
When you raise a life-threatening weapon to a fellow citizenâŚsee you in ten years, pal.
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I think you must have misread my post
Nah, Iâm not putting the original cartoon on you.
Well, ⌠that wonât help much then. 
Itâs very long.
Sorry.
I have the next three days off, soâŚ
Can you summarise?
Its that mandatory sentencing can create absurd outcomes, even when on face value the crime appears heinous (cue law and order theme song).
A 17 yo boy has a 15 yo gf. The boy turns 18 and boom statutory rape, does this boy deserve to go to jail for 10 years because thats the minimum for rapists?
Or in defending someone life you inadvertently kill the attacker, do you deserve the minimum sentence for manslaughter?
Pretty sure I restricted my mandatory sentencing call to violence.
Will mandatory sentencing make a home invaderâs life worse?
Awwwwwwwwww.
Farking good!
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Rape and manslaughter arenât violent??
Youâre being silly.
What the US call statutory rape could have no violence whatsoever.
It could have no coercionâŚ
You know what?
It could have consensual violence.
Letâs stay on track, shall we?
No-one is consensually threatened with their life.
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You could have read it thrice by now Wimma ⌠jusâ sayinâ âŚ
It aint that long, ⌠and it will make the point. Itâs the most pertinent article/example I could find, ⌠being it discusses the last Lieberal Gov implementing the exact thing, while cutting TAFE and other social programs to pay for it, and crime went up by heaps after dropping for each year of the previous decade when we had money going into these things,
There is a myriad of evidence that it just does not work in reducing crime, and instead simply leads to unjust outcomes.
Nah, itâs pretty long.
Iâm sorry.
If home invasions arenât taboo, then they farking should be.
Iâm all for supporting people and giving them what they need to make a go of it.
But if that happens without jail, then weâre failing as a society.