What the hell has happened to our justice system ?

[Mugwump]

^ if it can be shown that community service orders for serious violent crime work better than a properly punitive, “I really do not want to go there again” jail experience, please present it. Years of so-called rehabilitative, reforming prison ideology seems to have resulted in jails which are barely under control - rife with drugs, where the weak are terrorized, and criminals have little fear of th consequences of crime.

Meanwhile serious violent crime continues to escalate, despite a welfare and education system that exceeds the wildest hopes of previous, far less criminal generations. What data would lead you to consider that the bien-pensant, 1960s liberal experiment has failed ?

[ronrat]

30 years ago a housemate of mine got a 1000 hours community service for being involved in a brawl where Police car was kicked in. It bloody near killed him. He would get home from work as a storeman around 4.30 and have a shower and had to be elsewhere at 6.00. He had lost his driving licence so had to get to Nunawading from Ringwood by train. he did this 4 nights a week for 4 hours, then get home and all day Sunday for 8 hours. He was only allowed to play cricket Saturday because our President was a JP and the Mayor. We hardly saw him. They gave him a discount of 175 hours. If he missed a session without a legitimate verified reason they could add more time. He was reapinting school buildings. We ended up doing his clothes washing because otherwise he would have lost Saturday night as well. He reckons a month inside would have been easier. Used his annual leave to do the time.

[pietillidie]

^Despite being years ago, that's a proper concrete insight. It's not the sort of thing one can just "know" or imagine; you need to be close to these things to get a realistic sense of them.

Most of this topic trades in things which are remote to most people, such as the technical and procedural aspects of the legal system; the minutiae of a specific case; the statistical and analytical representation of crime; the lived trauma of victimhood in its many forms; the efficacy of the many divergent prescriptions for reducing crime; the science of criminal pathology; the lived experience of prison; the lived reality of policing; and much more no doubt.

It's just not a topic we can trust our intuitions with.

[think positive]

The only intuition I need on this case is this picture, yep she really feels contrite! Not.

[Jezza]

I'm not sure whether this is only being reported because it's a coincidence, or whether this is a more common trend than we realise but it's gaining traction in the public conscience so the media is reporting on it.

Either way, this is disgraceful.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/two-paramedics-assaulted-overnight-amid-calls-for-tougher-laws-20180518-p4zg1s.html

[think positive]

and thats the problem with the precedence now set. is it too late to appeal the decision?

[Pies4shaw]

[think positive]

Well thats good to hear