Truth in sentencing

[Limewood]

There is no doubt those who hand out sentences to the convicted in many cases surprise us all, we the public look on in horror at the leniency of terms given or a slap on the wrist go home be a good person - and do your community service, but do they and what if they don't?

Then violent crimes like, murder, armed hold up, bashings and rapists who rarely serve their total terms because there are huge first timer remissions of up to a third of time given, I for one think no remissions on violent crimes period. In most US states Murder is forever as it was here many moons ago, its about time the laws were changed.

 

[Hvr]

Is there a particular case that has affected you? Or is this just a general rant?


I think as a society we focus too much on some crimes and basically ignore other types. To raise a polemic, white collar crimes have traditionally been very lucrative and punishment low or non-existent. Look at what the banking industry has gotten away with and how badly affected their victims are with little or no recourse or even the 'satisfaction' of seeing the perpetrators adequately punished.

The American (i.e. USA) criminal justice system is certainly nothing to use for any positive comments about how to prosecute and punish criminals. Way too many innocent people languishing in jails.

Maybe something like the Dutch or Scandinavian systems where there is a genuine focus on getting to the root cause of the crime and rehabilitating the offender.

The unequal and punitive measures of blaming people for being poor and/or being mentally ill aren't working to the ultimate detriment of society.

 

[drron]

The problem is we are all different with different life experiences.To one person a sentence might seem lenient but to another too severe.
At least at the sentencing stage the sentence can be appealed.

I have to say though 10 years ago there was a sentence that shocked me.An indigenous woman was sentenced to 14 years for murdering her husband.He was an alcoholic,beat her and her children and would bring other women home.She finally had had enough.If she were white she would more than likely not have served extra jail time from the date of her conviction.
But that brought me to the second problem with our justice system-parole.She was in jail in Townsville and after 11 years was paroled.A condition of her parole was to remain in Townsville.All her family were in Mt.Isa.As should have been predicted she went straight back to Mt.Isa.Arrested and sentenced to serve the rest of her sentence in jail in Townsville.

That's when I came into the picture.She wasn't given her insulin in the lockup so admitted to hospital.it was easy to control her diabetes but she remained medically unfit to travel for 10 days-giving all her family the time to get to see her.
But it didn't end there.Middle of January she was taken to Townsville in the back of a paddy wagon.A white prisoner I saw was flown back.

 

[samh004]

I have moved your thread to the playground, because the "Open Discussion" forum clearly states (my emphasis):

A general discussion for the Australian Frequent Flyer Online community. Share your airline, reward program and general travel experiences here.

 

[Milboo]

An underlying issue is the way in which the media report in sentencing - which is a very light on details approach and sometimes somewhat at odds which the actual judgment if they took time to read and understand it.

Sentencing is actually a complex equation taking into account the principles of sentencing (like proportionality, parsimony and in line with similar offending and sentencing of others) and the purposes - like rehabilitating the offender, protecting the victim/ broader society, punishment, deterrence/ denouncement.

Overlay all of that with the circumstances of the offence, any aggravating or mitigating factors and then the personal circumstances of the offender - including any addiction issues, prior criminal history especially for like offending, contrition, early plea of guilty, availability of other sentencing options etc

Before sentencing too a pre-sentencing report would be obtained from Corrective Services and that has influence normally on the decision making, as does fitting the offence in to the scale of like offending by others.

Judges don't take sentencing lightly, especially as they are aware that it leaves it open to appeal (too harsh - defendant and too light - prosecution) and no judge likes appeals against their decisions!