A broken system... (Bourke Street Incident Related)

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halfstroke

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Jesterarts said:
SOoooooooooooooooooooooo I'm going to be the guys that starts the heated topic about the Bourke street incident yesterday.

I'm connected to the event on two angles:

1. Had two colleagues narrowly missed. We work on Lt Bourke and they returned obviously shaken
2. I have a 3 month old daughter. So every thing I think about it I cannot help thinking about my Ava being taken away like that.

My blood then reaches boiling point when I read things like "There is an extensive family violence history involved" and "He has been coming to our attention more recently over recent days in relation to assaults, family violence-related assaults."

This point towards a failing justice and rehabilitation system. But then, I read about the fact he was on bail, for a violent and psychotic attack on an older bloke over the weekend.

What moronic judge, based on that violent assault, made the call that "Jimmy" was safe to release into the community?

And how if he going to be made accountant for the death and injuries of everyone yesterday?

How broken is our system, when a judge lets someone out after an assault like that, and with a strong history of re-offending and violent unstable behaviour?
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How can you call the system broken when you don't even know well its working.
2015 statistics
Homicide 4 year decrease - 413 victims
Abduction 4 year decrease - 523 victims
Robbery 5 year decrease - 8966 victims
Sexual assault 4 year increase - 21380 victims

Want to know how many people died on ours roads last year
1301 people.

Your more likely to die driving your kids to school than by some nut job criminal/terrorist.
So i'd say overall the system is improving, not regarding sexual assault obviously.
If anything you keyboard warriors should by blowing up about the all the rampant sexual deviants roaming the streets.

Here are the links to the stats i used.

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4510.0~2015~Main%20Features~Victims%20of%20Crime,%20Australia~3

https://bitre.gov.au/statistics/safety/fatal_road_crash_database.aspx
 
placebo

placebo

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golden path said:
See there's the thing.....people want to know why dangerous criminals are on the streets, why courts aren't imposing strong sentences, why police are becoming more and more limp wristed, and then it's suddenly all about the place becoming a "police state."
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Didn't the police in Victoria get made a bit more limp wristed because they were in the business of shooting and robbing drug dealers, murdering witnesses, and murdering drug dealers that were in competition with their preferred drug dealers? It's pretty hard to defend a tough on crime police state, when the police are running the crime. It's reminiscent of the NSW Armed Hold Up squad, that organised the armed hold ups, and shot anyone that didn't work within their system, and give the police their cut.
 
pharmaboy

pharmaboy

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golden path said:
Also plenty of info on the effects of crime, and particularly violent crime on victims - if folks are wanting to feel empathy for someone....
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Trying to understand where crime comes from is necessary if you are going to reduce it. It's not an either/or situation. I can seek to understand a criminals history without impacting my ability to have empathy for a victim.

At the same time, it doesn't do the victim any good to have feelings of revenge and any feelings of justification after a criminals sentencing do not add to their rehabilitation after the fact.

every time I have looked at stats for crime in Australia, most types are heading downwards as incidence rates, so in spite of the news reporting more, we are actually safer - maybe the system is working better than people's perceptions?
 
golden path

golden path

Banned
placebo said:
Didn't the police in Victoria get made a bit more limp wristed because they were in the business of shooting and robbing drug dealers, murdering witnesses, and murdering drug dealers that were in competition with their preferred drug dealers? It's pretty hard to defend a tough on crime police state, when the police are running the crime. It's reminiscent of the NSW Armed Hold Up squad, that organised the armed hold ups, and shot anyone that didn't work within their system, and give the police their cut.
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What a load of shit.

pharmaboy said:
Trying to understand where crime comes from is necessary if you are going to reduce it. It's not an either/or situation. I can seek to understand a criminals history without impacting my ability to have empathy for a victim.

At the same time, it doesn't do the victim any good to have feelings of revenge and any feelings of justification after a criminals sentencing do not add to their rehabilitation after the fact.

every time I have looked at stats for crime in Australia, most types are heading downwards as incidence rates, so in spite of the news reporting more, we are actually safer - maybe the system is working better than people's perceptions?
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Part of sentencing is punishment - we hand our own right of revenge over to the courts. Victims WILL express disappointment and anger if they believe a court hasn't given out punishment. Particularly if it's a crime against the person like assault, armed robbery, and so on. It certainly doesn't help with their rehabilitation.
 
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pharmaboy

pharmaboy

Eats Squid
halfstroke said:
How can you call the system broken when you don't even know well its working.
2015 statistics
Homicide 4 year decrease - 413 victims
Abduction 4 year decrease - 523 victims
Robbery 5 year decrease - 8966 victims
Sexual assault 4 year increase - 21380 victims

Want to know how many people died on ours roads last year
1301 people.

Your more likely to die driving your kids to school than by some nut job criminal/terrorist.
So i'd say overall the system is improving, not regarding sexual assault obviously.
If anything you keyboard warriors should by blowing up about the all the rampant sexual deviants roaming the streets.

Here are the links to the stats i used.

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4510.0~2015~Main%20Features~Victims%20of%20Crime,%20Australia~3

https://bitre.gov.au/statistics/safety/fatal_road_crash_database.aspx
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I think sexual assault is driven by reporting mostly. It used to be a terribly under reported crime, where victims were encouraged not to report - you'll have to go through court, be questioned publicly about your sexual history etc etc. date rape 20 years ago was viewed entirely differently to today
 
Haakon

Haakon

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pharmaboy said:
I think sexual assault is driven by reporting mostly. It used to be a terribly under reported crime, where victims were encouraged not to report - you'll have to go through court, be questioned publicly about your sexual history etc etc. date rape 20 years ago was viewed entirely differently to today
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In Russia they're in the process of decriminalising sexual and physical assault of spouses... Australia is still a good place to be.
 
Dozer

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wavike said:
A quick search shows about 1/2 prisoners have mental health issue.
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nuclear_powered said:
The prospect of being locked up to these folk would be different than it would to you and I. Certainly not as scary anyway.
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pharmaboy said:
Remember that you come from the side of normality where such things do scare you
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Excellent points and pretty much answers my suggestion.
To me, life is too good to miss out on by making an error and spending time in jail. Lucky me. :rockon:
 
golden path

golden path

Banned
Dozer said:
Excellent points and pretty much answers my suggestion.
To me, life is too good to miss out on by making an error and spending time in jail. Lucky me. :rockon:
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Except for the most part you don't need to make "an error" to go to jail. You need to make several. Or many.
 
golden path

golden path

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placebo said:
Really? I'm thinking of things like this. If it's the NSW stuff, then there's a royal commission that disagrees with you.
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And the OPI with all their coercive powers, secured a conviction against who?

Some of their investigations were Keystone cops stuff and I don't know that they ever got any big fish before they became the IBAC. And IBAC, happily, have a broader scope.


Granted, there will still be some corrupt cops out there, same as there is corruption everywhere.

Doesn't mean you go on to hamstring the good ones.
 
placebo

placebo

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Exactly. No system is perfect, and any slack or tolerance in the criminal justice system has to be in favour of the good ones. The weighting in our system is in deliberately in favour of the accused, because the unjust conviction and incarceration of an innocent person is rightly viewed as the ultimate failure of the system. People are going to people, and without the benefit of pre-crime analysis, an unjust conviction only adds insult to injury.
 
golden path

golden path

Banned
I'm not sure how we've moved from repeat, violent offenders being back on the streets time and again, to the innocent being convicted.

The Vic Gov't also now have to deal with the pantomine that played out the other day, where offenders from the Malmsbury juvenile justice facility broke out and committed armed robberies, car thefts and aggravated burglaries.
 
K

Kerplunk

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placebo said:
Exactly. No system is perfect, and any slack or tolerance in the criminal justice system has to be in favour of the good ones. The weighting in our system is in deliberately in favour of the accused, because the unjust conviction and incarceration of an innocent person is rightly viewed as the ultimate failure of the system. People are going to people, and without the benefit of pre-crime analysis, an unjust conviction only adds insult to injury.
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Fair enough point, but what does that have to do with a system that had no ability to deal with convicted *repeat* violent offenders? I don't have the answers, but waiting for them to commit the 'big one' before chucking the book at them isn't acceptable.
 
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Asininedrivel

Asininedrivel

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Kerplunk said:
The system has plenty of empathy. It is designed to give people a break and a chance to renew. When someone continues to fuck up in a non violent way the are directed towards systems that are meant to help rather than just punish. It's not perfect by any stretch but still at least exists..

When it comes violence, the system fails miserably.. I personally know of a cop who is completely fkd up from attending one horrific incident and can no longer work. The offender eventually got minimum sentence after fighting like hell even though he pleaded guilty.. Now he is happy working with random kids to diff women living life like nothing happened. The victims families are a mess and each day is a struggle.. Who deserves the empathy here? (The offender had a whopping record)
The system doesn't recognise the victims, it just applies 'the law'.. Even victim impact statements hold little weight in sentencing these days..
The system just gives too many chances before it finally catches up and the offender gets a whack of jail time.
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Sadly I'm intimately familiar with the effects of violence - and the often pathetic response from the justice system. The consequences left my mum debilitated for years, and the perpetrator (an individual who shares remarkable similarities with the pos who committed Bourke St) was given bail time after time because he had just enough cunning to dupe the system, despite the police repeatedly protesting that he was in fact, a total piece of shit.

As someone else pointed out, the system needs to be rejigged to accept that some people are never, ever going to be rehabilitated and some are never, ever going to be fit to be integrated into society. Some people are just ****s.

A cynical part of me does wonder whether our ever lenient bail applications are more to reduce costs of incarcerating people...
 
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