Thoughts on a national campaign for mandatory sentencing of certain violent criminals

This is from an email I sent to my local MP this morning. 

***

Today's ABC website includes an article on a campaign for strong, mandatory sentencing of rapist-murderers - see https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-13/survivor-joins-push-to-have-rapist-murderers-jailed-for-life/100691818.

The purpose of punishment is to ensure that society is protected by:

1. ensuring those who are likely to commit harm cannot do so; and
   
2. to encourage change in wrongdoers, to prevent recidivism.
   

I consider most democracies can do better on the second point (except for Norway, which appears to have set a lead for the world to follow), and, with regard to the first, there are unquestionably some people who need, for the safety and wellbeing of the community, to be kept in jail, such as child abusers.

However, with any law which mandates punishment, there is always the possibility of abuse (for instance, from a future corrupt government or official) and of circumstances occurring that have not been considered (the increased understanding of mental illness, and of some physical illnesses over around the last century or so is an example) or some other change that makes the mandatory sentence inappropriate (such as the increased understanding in the USA of racist aspects of their "justice" system).

I don't consider the issue here to actually be about mandatory punishment, but before I leave that, I am in favour of flexibility for judges, and thus would have no objection to the law allowing for the possibility of rapist-murderers being sentenced to never be released, but that should be optional, and subject to the normal appeals processes.

I consider the more important issues that this campaign shows are:

• the possible role of unconscious bias; and
  
• the depth of damage done to victims of crime.
  

Some years ago, members of the public were given the details of cases and assigned the task of imposing a punishment (e.g., X years in prison), and the sentences imposed by those members of the public were then compared to the sentences imposed by judges.

In all all but one category, those sentences were lower than those imposed by the judges - suggesting that the perception judges were "soft" on crime was wrong.

The exception to that was sexual assault, where the sentences imposed - especially by those who were victims of sexual assault - were noticeably harsher than those imposed by judges.

This, in my opinion, showed that the predominantly male judges of that time, which I think was before the "MeToo" movement became widespread (or at an early stage of that), lacked an understanding of the devastation caused by sexual assault. I understand that we, in my home state, have awareness training for judges, but we may need to intensify and extend that. The long struggle for justice around institutional child abuse shows how it is vital to ensure that the attitudes of those throughout the justice system are not limiting.

There is also a need to understand that "seeing justice done" is not solely about having the facts of a punishment that has been meted out reported precisely: it is also about members of the public, especially other victims of similar crimes, gaining confidence that those involved understand the trauma inflicted on the victims - which applies not only to those (such as myself - as child and adult) who have been sexually assaulted but also those who have been on the receiving end of discrimination (and the discriminatory abuse I have received has left me with far more complex trauma than the sexual assaults).

To put that another way, "seeing justice done" also needs to include "hearing victims", which I suggest, in some cases, needs to go beyond our current, excellent and necessary provisions for victim statements. Inadequate media reporting is, IMO, a part of this, but there are a lot of victims of sexual assault who do not make complaints over concerns about how they would be treated.

Some of those victims, incidentally, are male.