When I made mention of sentences due to over population, I said partially,
the same as sentences are partially given for other reasons.
Victorian Attorney General Martin Pakula, (he may now be the former after the recent election, I don't reside in Vic)
2017 Makes statement that Victorians are sick and tired of offenders being handed lenient sentences, and will be legislating to ensure that there are a number of offences that fall into the correction order category that will no longer be an option,
and made mention of the current prison population status, and mentions about an extra 700 beds for a Vic prison.
People convicted of certain crimes against children, such priests, teachers and other community leaders will no longer be able to claim they are of "good character" when seeking more lenient sentences in Victorian courts.
2017 Greg Davies The Victims of Crime Commissioner makes statement, that sentencing in Victoria had “lost its way”.
2018 John Pesutto shadow AG
Announces plans to introduce mandatory sentences for certain crimes.
2016-2017 A case that ended in the high court,
A sentence was given, and the Ddp appeals to the Court of appeal, on grounds of it being inadequate. The court of appeal
agrees and said that judges should adjust sentences upwards, however the court claimed it was constrained by current sentencing practices and dismissed the appeal.
Ddp goes to the high court and in short they reached a conclusion that current sentences were inadequate and the Court of appeals had placed too much weight on current sentencing practices.
Vic govt media release in mid 2018 by the then corrections minister said that are slowly getting a handle
on the prisons and sentencing. If this is true, it is a step in the right direction.
Personal
In the past 12 months or so, a distant relative had been before the courts and has a history of offences, some violent.
He was given an ICO (intensive corrections order) if he broke it he would be facing a gaol term.
In less than 6 months, he was arrested and charged with a number of offenses, including assault and having a stun gun.
He was held without bail, due to the ICO, and only in the past couple of months he receives a sentence for his crimes.
The gaol he was originally held, was one that had been identified as crowded, and was moved to other that was around another 100 or so ks away. during sentencing his lawyer makes reference to this, and how it has effected his family, having small children,
who have no means of travel to visit him.
This was not the full extent of the lawyers summary, he also threw in the usual excuses.
What does he get, another good behaviour bond, and no action regarding him breaking the ICO and walks out the door.
Frankly, he should have gone to gaol, I have lost count how many chances he has had.
Earlier this year. I attended a trial and a sentencing hearing. One of my sons was attacked by two assailants
about 20 or 22 months prior. Why, because they wanted to steal his car while he was at an intersection in the evening.
He sustained a lot of physical injures, was strangled to the point of almost passing out and ligature marks were
still visible for months.
Both assailants were arrested within a couple of days, and held without bail due to criminal history,
on the first day of the trial one pleads guilty and the other not guilty.
The trial lasted 9 days, and the jury returns with a guilty verdict. A couple of weeks after the trial, the supreme court grants bail to the one who pleaded guilty, they ended up doing a runner and failed to appear in court on the sentencing date which
was about 3 months after the trial.
At the sentencing hearing past criminal history is read of the one still in custody, has a history of violent crimes,
against both men & women while committing crimes, some being home invasions, carjacking and robbery.
His lawyers make the usual excuses, coming from a broken home, drug addiction, not seeing his young daughter and that he is making every effort to turn his life around. He was facing a maximum of 18 years because of the numerous charges laid.
(not that any of us were expecting he would get that)
Judge sentences him to 4.5 years, with time served.
I regard this to be lenient for a person with such violent a history and the crimes he committed against my son.
The person who skipped bail was caught a while later while in the process of committing another crime.
Thanks to the supreme court and lawyers.
Within a couple of months of the arrests, my son had received a number of threats of violence if he gave evidence,
these were both verbally and by text, (when the crime happened his phone and wallet were also taken, we replaced the phone
and never gave it any thought about the phone number and got a new sim card and activated the number again.
We then changed the number, and the police were unable to identify who was sending the threats.
We had a couple of unusual events happen at home, and had to beef up security, alarms and surveillance cameras.
We were very concerned, we all made a decision that there was need to relocate our son and his girlfriend
as a safety precaution.
We move them to a country area hundreds of ks away, he had already lost his job and was not well enough to work.
He has had no contact with any of the friends he had. My wife and I have kept his where abouts from most of our own friends,
and just say that he is in a country area and is ok.
.
Our son recovered from most of the physical damage, however one eye has permanent damage.
The psychological damage has been a long journey for him. In the past 6 months he has improved greatly, but still
has some problems, it is extremely rare that he will go out of a night, and takes a lot of precautions.
I have a couple of close friends who are Lawyers, It was only last night that I was out with one of them who
is a criminal defence lawyer. He and I have opposing opinions on the state of crime and sentences imposed, our differences can sometimes be heated, even though were are very close friends. I want them in gaol and his job is to use all legal means to get them off, or the lowest possible sentence.
Many a time it is part of our chats. Bail, often he says that it will be granted due to the over population, his own words are,
they have no where to put them, and strict conditions are usually imposed.
I am dumb founded by some sentences that his clients get. He will often say the same thing, making reference to the prison population and how strained it is. He has said that he prefers certain Judges or Magistrates as some aren't as tough as others,
and most Lawyers will have their favorites.
I believe that the wheels of justice have more that one broken spoke.
I have said enough on this topic !
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