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David 
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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| Post subject: The dangerous authoritarianism of Derryn Hinch |  |
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I just had this article published in New Matilda. I'm sure people here will already have strong views on these issues, and mine won't surprise anyone; but hopefully I've made a good case for why people should think twice about voting for Derryn Hinch:
https://newmatilda.com/2016/06/22/dangerous-derryn-hinch-and-the-case-for-treating-criminals-humanely/
| Quote: | As criminal justice systems have increasingly shifted their focus from retribution to rehabilitation, societies have struggled with the question of what a former criminals place in society can or should be.
For economic reasons alone, it is clearly not in societys interests to lock up criminals indefinitely; neither is it beneficial to release unrehabilitated criminals back into the community. In theory, upon completing sufficient sentences, ex-convicts would fully rejoin society as free citizens.
The reality, however, is often very different. In the past, capital punishment provided the state with the opportunity to literally erase criminals from existence. That practice may have been left behind here and elsewhere, but other, subtler methods of erasure persist from denying ex-convicts the right to vote, to blocking them from gaining employment, to deporting them.
Derryn Hinchs public sex offender register modelled on Americas brutal, profit-driven justice system is the worst possible manifestation of this paradigm.
By openly publishing sex offenders photographs and home addresses alongside their criminal record, his proposal would dramatically lessen their prospects of gaining work and increase the risk of violent reprisals both consequences that would have a severely negative impact on prospects of rehabilitation.
An unrehabilitated individual is, by definition, far more likely to re-offend. Thus, not only do such practices ensure that criminals continue to be punished long after the expiration of their jail terms, they increase the risk of re-offence and ensure the creation of new victims. |
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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| Do you still have this article published in New Matilda ? |
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watt price tully 
Joined: 15 May 2007
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Well written David & congratulations.
Is the New Matilda next to MMM radio?
However, you omitted that the scrabble abilities of prisoners may well improve under Hinch.
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“I even went as far as becoming a Southern Baptist until I realised they didn’t keep ‘em under long enough” Kinky Friedman |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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Thanks! re: Hinch's passion for scrabble, goes to show that even a stopped clock is right twice a day. 
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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| Oops. Too much data. |
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Culprit 
Joined: 06 Feb 2003
Location: Port Melbourne
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| Hinch will get a seat as people are over the softly softly approach regarding Pedophiles. They are mentally ill with no known cure and no one is protecting the public. The prison system has built a protection system which places all the Pedophiles together to build their school of crime. |
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stui magpie 
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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Congratulations on getting the article published.
Some constructive criticism if I may.
I found the first part of it well written, however once you started going into the historical treatment of prisoners and all the political arguments about progressives and rights the article got bogged down for me.
Also, some of the language was reminiscent of academic writing.
My points are made from the perspective that if you want to write articles in publications that have a wider general circulation you need to cater to your audience more, keep it shorter and don't use language that would require some readers to have to google the words to understand your meaning.
Overall the reasoning was sound, I wouldn't say you were going to convince anyone who didn't already agree with you but printed in a niche publication with a niche audience as it was you would have hit most of the right buttons.
_________________
Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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Thanks Stui all good suggestions.
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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ronrat
Joined: 22 May 2006
Location: Thailand
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Anyone who votes for a Melbourne supporter needs his head read. The major flaw in the American system is that DNA evidence is clearing some of the convicted almost daily. And the scope is too wide. An 18 year old could pick up a girl at a nightclub only to be charged with having sex with a minor when he discovers after the fact she is only 15 and this is happening in the USA all the time. In theory anyone with an early Traci Lords porn movie could be charged with possessing child pornography.
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Annoying opposition supporters since 1967. |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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^ Indeed, and in Hinch's world each of those people would spend the rest of their lives with their details (name, photo, current address) on a public website for all to see alongside all the worst sex offenders. Hinch says there would be a message on the site warning against vigilante retribution, but like that's really going to stop some bovver boy or two from throwing a brick through a window at 3am.
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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