TL DNR?? Mandatory sentencing doesn’t work, … and beware the US style Prison Industrial complex now polluting us through Privatised Jails.
Some Australian states, like Victoria, have a higher proportion of prisoners in private prisons. In Victoria nearly one third of prisoners are held in private prisons, giving it the highest level of prison privatization of any jurisdiction in the world.
Repeating your position doesn’t change things. Mandatory sentencing has worked - this is fact. The proposed policy of the Libs is to target repeat violent offenders for longer minimum sentences. So far you have provided nothing at all to support the position that this policy will not see repeat violent offenders receive longer minimum sentences. All you’ve done is repeat a lie about MS in general applying a standard that is irrelevant. MS is not about rehabilitation, its not about tackling the base causes of crime like poverty & drugs & its not about placing a cost on public safety. In this case here & now its about ensuring that repeat violent offenders are removed from society for longer periods in line with what many in society expect.
Invested in Prisons by any chance?
Mandatory minimum sentences and populist criminal justice policy do not work – here’s why
Kate Fitz-Gibbon
6-7 minutes
The Victorian Liberal Party recently announced that, if elected in November 2018, it would introduce mandatory minimum sentences for repeat violent offenders as part of its crackdown on crime.
Heralded as a “two-strike” approach, the proposal applies specifically to repeat offenders and 11 violent crimes, including murder, rape and armed robbery. Shadow Attorney-General John Pesutto claimed the proposed new sentencing laws were “unprecedented” in Victoria and “will be certainly among the toughest measures that anyone has sought to introduce in our criminal justice system”.
Although obviously intended to improve community safety, mandatory minimum sentencing policies run counter to the significant body of evidence indicating that this approach to sentencing is costly, unlikely to improve public safety nor effective in deterring future offending.
Despite this, such political promises are neither new nor unique to Victoria.
Mandatory minimum sentencing across Australia
Mandatory maximum and minimum sentencing policies have been introduced to varying degrees across other Australian states and territories. Western Australia, the Northern Territory, Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria have each introduced minimum terms of imprisonment for a variety of different offences.
At the Commonwealth level, the Migration Act imposes mandatory minimum terms of imprisonment for aggravated people-smuggling offences.
The widespread uptake of such policies should not, however, be considered an indicator of their success in practice. Successive reviews and inquiries have revealed that mandatory sentences fail to achieve their stated aims and have unintended consequences in practice, particularly for marginalised and diverse communities.
Failure to enhance public safety
The limits and dangers of mandatory sentencing schemes are well-established in Australian and international research.
Importantly, we know the threat of a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment does little to deter future offending. Therefore, the approach fails to achieve its aim of reducing offending and increasing public safety.
While policies that promise definite and lengthy terms of imprisonment for repeat violent offences may appear attractive within populist politics, they undermine long-established principles of proportionality and individualised justice.
In sentencing offenders for serious violent crime, senior members of the judiciary are in an expert position to determine the appropriate sentence to be imposed. Politicians lack the qualifications and experience to determine sentences, though they can pass legislation that reflects public concern and gives the judiciary the power to determine sentences for punishment, deterrence and rehabilitation.
By weighing up the individual facts of a case, a person’s offending and their individual circumstances, a judge works to apply a just sentence. Such a complex act of sentencing should not be used by politicians as a response to populist concerns.
The cost of mandatory sentencing
The failure of mandatory sentencing to achieve its stated aims also comes at a significant cost to public money. By their very nature, such policies divert more people into the prison system and for lengthier periods of time. The result is greater cost.
Take the recent Victorian policy announcement for example. In 2015, the Productivity Commission found that it cost A$103,000 annually to imprison one person in a secure Victorian prison facility. Victorian Opposition Leader Matthew Guy estimated the proposed sentencing laws would impact 3-4,000 people “over a period of time”.
On this basis, over the government’s four-year term, if 3,000 additional people were imprisoned for one year, the opposition’s proposed policy would cost – at minimum – an estimated $309 million. If this cost were repeated each year for the four-year term of government, the cost of the policy would be a minimum of $1.236 billion.
From a purely economic perspective, the cost of this approach is staggering. That $309 million will not be spent on tackling the underlying causes of crime or implementing evidence-based criminal justice policies.
And, at a time when Victoria – and many Australian jurisdictions – is imprisoning more people than ever, any policies that increase prisoner numbers must be seriously reconsidered.
‘Political’ responses to crime
Policies such as that announced by the Victorian Liberals are commonplace in the lead-up to state elections, when parties often mount “law and order” campaigns.
Politicians will often promise tougher criminal justice policies, usually in the form of longer terms of imprisonment, or zero-tolerance policing. This is all sold as taking action to “keep the community safe”.
The political nature of such reforms was evident in 2014. Following a series of high-profile “one-punch” homicide deaths, NSW introduced a minimum term of eight years’ imprisonment for offenders who were intoxicated while committing such a crime. Championed by then-premier Barry O’Farrell and later introduced by Mike Baird, the harsh approach to sentencing was touted as a response to public outrage over increasing levels of alcohol-fuelled violence.
Over two years on, the Law Council of Australia has appealed for the abolition of the law, noting that mandatory minimums “create greater law and order problems” than they solve.
Why we must learn from our mistakes
Since the Victorian Liberals’ announcement, the proposal for mandatory minimum sentencing has been met with significant criticism from the legal and academic community. Their concerns are well founded.
Australian states and territories must move away from populist, ineffective “law and order” policies in favour of evidence-based and individualised responses to serious criminal justice concerns.
Those figures for increased jail attendance.
How do they stack up against Victoria’s population growth?
And projected jail places against projected growth?
I hate to be a pill, but they don’t seem that out of line to me.
So it strikes me that putting those big stats in is either not thought out, or part of an agenda.
Just a little one, don’t get me wrong.
But still.
Firstly the title is “when taking the hard line is the weak option” but it goes on to exalt the success of Singapore’s “we execute them” approach. It highlights that prisoner numbers have significantly increased in Vic even without Guy’s proposed MS plans but then makes the baseless assumption that the changes would be responsible for 2000 extra prisoners - how is that remotely possible? The proposed changes would simply see the same repeat prisoners serve longer sentences so unless you think MS will be the difference between 10 years & no jail time at all then how can you make the claim that MS will somehow encourage offenders to re-offend? Oh I was going to go straight & not keep raping women when there was a chance I might only get a few years but now that I know its going to cost me a minimum of 15 years I’m gonna rape again - thats the logic being promoted here.
The middle of the story absolutely has merit & again nobody is suggesting that MS addresses drug use or mental illness as major driving forces for crime. Trying to link the 2 is not something I believe anyone advocating for MS is trying to do. And arguing against treatment for those conditions is not somehow linked to arguing for MS -they are all part of the overall crime issue but its not a 1 or the other scenario. Treatment & rehabilitation does address the causes of crime, MS addresses the communities desire to see repeat offenders punished. I 100% support the need for much much more investment in mental health treatment & drug rehabilitation but fail to see how that precludes the need lock repeat violent offenders away for long periods of time.
If you look after the under privileged in society,… the society will look after you.
Ignore them, de fund all the programs like Education etc and kick them to the curb, they get angry and they rebel get into drugs etc etc,
This is long standing known stuff.
We are heading down an American path, when we should be following the likes of Norway … (as it happens).
Eg: The increase in violent crime is in direct correlation with Meth use. We should be doing everything possible to prevent youth using it in the 1st place, and getting them into rehab and giving them help if they fall victim to it.
Jailing them doesn’t help, they just come out more deranged angry bitter, and better, criminals.
Or de fund all that stuff, then shut the gate (literally) after the horses have bolted. That’s way better for those that profit from prisons at least.
I am not sure J, that the community actually has a desire to see offenders punished, for my community it more about getting them off the streets and keeping us all safer. There is a lot of feeling in this Town after the death of Sarah Cafferkey
How is jailing violent offenders not ‘looking after the under privileged in society?’
Who do you think these crimes are committed against?
John Elliott?
Edit: And what that has to do with the increased rate of jailed people against the increased rate of population, I do not know.
Okay, we’ve gone from a prison population of 100 per 100,000 in 2006 to 138 per 100,000 in 2016.
So we are jailing more people than we used to.
Interestingly though, for most of the decade the rate was pretty stable.
But between 2012 and 2014 it jumped from 111 per 100k to 134. Which is…odd.
The answer is in the 1st article I posted.
And there’s millions to be made if you have cash invested in Prisons…
The one you posted an hour ago?
That had per capita prison population?
Maybe something to do with the Government of the day; and the next one has had to build more prisons !!
No, … the very 1st, … that you wouldn’t read.
Getting them off the streets & keeping us all safer is connected with offenders being punished. In the local case of Sarah the community expectation I believe would be that having now been convicted of a second murder, there could not be the possibility of another light sentence that sees him spend only about 10 years off the streets. Without MS that has hopefully happened (who knows if some future action might reduce his sentence or a change in policy see him paroled) but again I believe the community expects that these people with numerous convictions again & again are punished harsher than they have been.
A better example I think & one that is probably at the forefront of this policy is Jill Meagher. The public I believe were outraged at the fact that Bayley had received what many consider to be very lenient sentences for numerous rapes. The fact that he was out on bail is also significant but I don’t believe MS necessarily addresses the parole boards failure to recognise the dangers of the people they release.
Exactly mate, it doesn’t.
And on that score, what the ferret actually announced yesterday, … (on the face of it at least), re parole and non concurrent sentencing, may have some merit, … to the point where I wouldn’t be surprised if Dandrews adopted it himself in some form.
I can agree with most of that. My view on capital punishment is not about them being punished, it is all about eliminating any such people from society for all our benefit.
And being hard on violent crime is not just the realm of the Right; there are many Leftist regimes around the World that have had very tough sentences; think China and North Vietnam for a start. When I was in Cuba, there was a number of executions, for very serious and violent crimes.
Just put this on, … I have no idea why it came to mind … 
You don’t need a reason.
That’s just an awesome song.
Edit: You know what goes well with big orchestral strikes? A bit of yee-haa country acoustic guitar…
I sort of agree with the mandatory sentencing on home invasions and armed robbery, but feel a little sorry for any who might be coerced by threats into participating. Throw the book at the ring-leaders though.
Bit similar to feeling sorry for suicide bombers who are forced into it by threats against their families. No person could be more contemptible than someone who threatens to kill a family member or members unless another of that family kills themselves and others.
