Monday, 13 December 2021

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.

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Sunday, 12 December 2021

Service provision in the age of the Internet

I have just started the ball rolling on transferring my mobile phone to another phone company.

I've been with the current company since the early 1990s, and went to them because of aggressive, rude, and, frankly, discriminatory behaviour (breached the physical features attribute of my state's anti-discrimination act) from another phone company. The second phone company has not been perfect: their service staff have, at times, been just as aggressive, rude, and discriminatory at times as the first - to the extent that, since around the late 200os, I've refused to accept any phone calls from them, and will not make calls to them. 

Since the advent of the so-called "smart" phone, most service companies have been shifting to a solely online or phone call "service" model. However, that has, in actual practice, problems, including: 

  • the use of phone for contact is NOT convenient to all people - for instance, there are people who have hearing issues, and many phone contact services / people may not use or even know about the relay service;
  • services offered by websites are subject to several limitations, such as:
  • poor design - especially if the underlying assumptions are poor; 
  • assumptions that reduce security - such as connecting multiple accounts "for convenience", which is incredibly dangerous and NOT recommended or supported in any way by experts; 
  • limited or flawed offerings as a result of limited thinking (such as not conceiving of people being given phones as gifts, or of people NOT having so-called "smart" phones); 
  • assumptions that are discriminatory - which is a particular problem in the development of machine learning (aka "artificial intelligence"); 
  • restrictions to "save costs", such as being unable to order a SIM via the website for a phone that my partner gave me as a gift - which started this whole ball rolling.

Eventually, the only way I could raise the issue was by lodging an internal complaint - I don't currently have a so-called "smart" phone so can't use their app (although that keeps being suggested in their replies!), there is no email or online complaint form, I refuse to ring them because of their past behaviour, and pandemic restrictions have meant that, until recently, I couldn't visit any of their outlets.

Eventually, it turned out that the only ways I could order a new SIM for my gifted phone was to either ring them, or go in to an outlet. In accordance with the pandemic management measures (WHICH I COMPLETELY SUPPORT), I have to prove that I am double vaccinated: I'm not going to link my personal MyGov account to the check in app on my work phone (for obvious personal security reasons), but they would accept a print out of my vaccination certificate.

I also had to provide 100 points of identification (ID). 

This was starting to go beyond annoying to aggravating, but: 

  • I need to be able to update to a less ancient phone model for when the older network I'm currently on is switched off, 
  • it opens the possibility of using 5G for my internet connection in the future, and 
  • most important of all, I'll be able to show the "blue tick" rather than my certificate.  

(And those people who are FBU [bewildered, if you don't want to click on the link] by my not having a so-called "smart" phone will not have to grow and expand their thinking because I'll be as compliant with fads and fashions as them [well . . . almost - I'm still not going to do much more than phone calls and text messages . . . although I do like the cameras in the current and recent smartphones {darn - forgot the so-called} ] ). 

The phone company I was with then asked me to confirm that they could close the case. I did so . . . THREE TIMES, thus far. 

At this point, the whole exercise moved way beyond annoying and aggravating to downright offensive. 

Now, the service staff have provided acceptable responses to my questions (except for an offered "justification" of the demand for 100 points of ID [which is in excess of what the government authorities require] that was lacking in credibility, IMO), and I had decided to go in to one of their outlets - they may have needed a little prompting, which I am sure was because I was NOT following the playbook of being a sheeple, but they adapted and managed the complaint to my eventual satisfaction . . . until they were let down by what is probably a glitch in their system, and in consequence I started looking around at other options. 

The company I had left in the early 90s was still around, and I had considered shifting back to them a couple of times over the subsequent decades (mainly because of good attitudes by their face-to-face service staff), but they were slow to appreciate, in my recent enquiry, that I wouldn't ring anyone unless I had assurances that I would not be discriminated against over the phone - and when they did eventually reply, the reply emphasised that I would have to prove that discrimination had occurred before they would even consider doing anything. 

If I go to the trouble of doing so, which is easy enough to do, I'm not going to muck around with the internal complaints provisions of such companies: I'm going straight to a lawyer or the anti-discrimination authority - or both. (Around a decade ago, when I last went through this sort of exercise, one of the companies I contacted [which no longer exists] said they couldn't guarantee discrimination wouldn't occur, and I had to point out to them that there are laws against discrimination.) 

I have, however, through the assistance of my friends, found two other companies, and have started transferring my phone account to one - I've ordered a new SIM for starters. 

Interestingly, I didn't have to go through the 100 points of ID rubbish. 

Why? Probably because I was dealing with a younger company created and staffed by people who 

(a) didn't see the Internet as a massive set of boogey-people; and 

(b) had enough brains to realise that, if I have a credit card or account at a reputable bank, I already have done the 100 points of ID thing. 

Older companies created in the pre-Internet era, and headed by dinosaurs of my vintage, mostly "think" - wrongly - that being tougher is better. 

It's not. 

It's just incompetent to the point of stupidity.

It may play out well with similarly incompetent IPOCs, but:

(i) it misses the real security issues; 

(ii) it creates the potential for discrimination or failures on inclusivity as a result of the limited life experiences / thinking of dinosaurs of my vintage; and 

(iii) it puts off existing and potential customers - especially younger ones, who are the future of ALL companies. 

It also shows flawed ability to think clearly (see here). 

I had something similar with my former superannuation company. They wanted witnessed declarations etc for all manner of minor issues (and allowed third parties to request changes to my account details), whereas the new super company is one of the newer thinking companies I like, who use the required forms of checking ID and don't ramp it up to 100 points or lots of other onerous restrictions out of an incompetent opinion that such is somehow better - they just stick to the requirements that government authorities require (which do validly include 100 points of ID in some circumstances). 

Incidentally, the new super company is Cruelty Free Super, website https://www.crueltyfreesuper.com.au/ - I am very pleased with all my interactions thus far, and recommend them. 

I'm not going to identify and recommend my new phone company yet - I'm pleased with the interactions thus far, but haven't actually used their service yet. If I do find them good enough, I'll come back here and give them a free plug. 

In the meantime, the dinosaurs who think they're being in any way admirable by being tough and restrictive on ID while missing important security matters and enabling discrimination need to realise that they are killing the future of their company. 

(And, incidentally, insisting on the use of snail mail is a very obvious and deliberate attempt, IMO, to prevent complaints.)


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Saturday, 11 December 2021

Some (mostly) human rights links and thoughts - Saturday 11th December, 2021

Some human rights (including significant, relevant links in other fields - such as geopolitics, democracy, or authoritarianism) links: 

 On journalism: 


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Tuesday, 7 December 2021

The Cold War (aka "the long peace") and more on the benefits of stopping

I have now finished reading "The Cold War's Killing Fields: Rethinking the Long Peace" (pub. Harper, 2018, ISBN 978-0-06-236722-8, Amazon) by Paul Thomas Chamberlin, and am impressed and moved.

It turns out that, during the Cold War (a time also referred to as "the long peace"), deaths in violence totalled at least 21 million - 14 million of those in a series of wars and violent events in East, then South East, South, South West and West Asia. 

Since the end of the Cold War, deaths in those regions have declined. 

From Mr Chamberlin's book: 

"Despite Huntington, Lewis, and Kaplan’s dire warnings, the world experienced an overall decrease in the level of violence after 1990. Certain places, such as the former Yugoslavia, became more violent. But even Iraq, a nation that experienced two U.S. invasions, a decade of harsh sanctions, and years of brutal civil war, suffered more casualties on a yearly basis during the Iran-Iraq War than in the quarter century following 1990. Far from restraining conflict, the superpower confrontation actually fueled greater violence around the world. With the exceptions of Yugoslavia and sub-Saharan Africa, which was devastated by the Rwandan genocide and the horrifically violent and largely ignored Second Congo War, the post–Cold War world was a more peaceful place." 

Now, I consider a nuclear war, which was a distinct possibly several times during the Cold War, would have killed tens and probably hundreds of millions of people (particularly as a result of any nuclear winter) [Note 1] , so I can see the benefits of avoiding a third world war between the nuclear armed superpowers, but I also consider that the price of that should be acknowledged, and that price includes deaths, rapes, injury and wounds of various types, destruction & devastation, setbacks from ideological fixations, and the rise of new forms of violent extremism. 

We avoided a catastrophe, but did not do so without damage, and this book makes that very clear. 

I also consider that this book emphasises a point I wrote about (in the context of the Korean War) some time ago: the benefit of stopping.

". . . June 1982, the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), the military brass, and top Ba’ath officials held a meeting without the dictator to hammer out a cease-fire proposal. Baghdad proposed a truce in exchange for acceptance of the prewar status quo—a tacit admission that the war had been a mistake. Had Khomeini accepted the proposal, Saddam would likely have been pushed out of power. Tehran’s rejection, however, gave the Iraqi leader an opening to reassert his control."

"The proponents of the former option could argue that Tehran had successfully defended its territory and, in the eyes of much of the international community, been the victim of Iraqi aggression—to continue the war would cast the regime as the aggressor and risk further alienating it from the wider world. Those calling for invasion could argue, conversely, that Iran had paid a heavy price in the war and now had an opportunity to destroy the hated Ba’athist regime and restore access to the Shia holy sites at Najaf and Karbala, to the south of Baghdad. While Khomeini understood the dangers of invading Iraq, he was loath to sue for peace—tens of thousands of Iranians had died in the fighting, and their sacrifice must be avenged. Sometime around June 20, 1982, the regime made the fateful decision to invade Iraq in a bid to destroy Saddam’s regime."

So, just as millions of death, untold suffering for millions more, and devastation that secured the despot's place in Noth Korea could have been avoided by not tit-for-tat invading North Korea in 1950, so too could all that has happened around Hussein and his legacy have possibly been avoided, or limited, by Iran not tit-for-tat invading Iraq . . .

There are multiple opportunities to pause and reflect as one reads this book, and I recommend that all interested in world peace do so. 


Notes 

  1. See https://www.britannica.com/technology/nuclear-weapon,   https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/335-million-dead-if-america-launched-all-out-nuclear-war-57262,   https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nuclear_holocaust&oldid=1051804983,   https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nuclear_warfare&oldid=1057919770,   https://www.britannica.com/science/nuclear-winter,   https://fas.org/pir-pubs/risk-nuclear-winter/,   and   https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nuclear_winter&oldid=1058564553.



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Sunday, 5 December 2021

Cross posting: Post No. 2,101 - the death (again) of debate

This originally appeared on my main blog at https://gnwmythr.blogspot.com/2021/12/post-no-2101-death-again-of-debate.html. 

*** 

I've been doing some reading as I prepared my reference "post" on the Cold War - partly for research, and partly because i was anyway. 

One of the things that reminded me of was the insistence on ideological purity - the "if you're not with us, you're against us" idiocy that reached its fanatical peak in McCarthyism. 

The divisions we have now around management of the pandemic has exactly the same sort of "feel" about it - actually, no, that's not quite correct: the denialist minority have that same sort of blinkered, self-hypnotised and hysterical zealotry of McCarthy's maniacs (and quite a few violent extremists, I would suspect), whereas the other side is trying to find a way to communicate. 

Rationality is not working - it rarely does against the combination of emotions of this intensity and a refusal to think clearly.

Attacks won't work - they only contribute to the self-injured air of righteousness.

So . . . what to do? 

I've been trying to remember what got us out of the intellectual toddler tantrum aspects of the Cold War, and it seems to me that it was: 

  • the genuine suffering of those living under Marxist Communism; 
  • the courage of a few key people living under Marxist Communism;
  • lucid, fluent appeals in support of freedom and human rights; and 
  • sad to say, the material excesses and flashiness of the capitalist world.

That last point won't work here, as the denialists think they are being victimised by being excluded from the rewards of being good members of the community. 

The genuine suffering of the unvaccinated won't work either - if they do come round as a result of getting COVID, it is usually when they're about to be hooked up to a ventilator. 

Similarly, their victimhood gives them what they think is courage. 

So . . . that leaves: lucid, fluent appeals - but to genuine freedom, not the freedom to be a toddler throwing a tantrum over other people's right to life, and to human rights. 

Those who are merely reluctant are not those I am referring to here - if they are genuinely "just" reluctant, they can be reached through argument from people that THEY consider credible - not just who have the most letters after their name.

Those insisting on ideological zealotry are in a different category: they have to approached the same way we do with violent extremists, by people with emotional competence and the capability of dealing with the denialists' attempt to deny the existence of death out of existence. 

Think that sounds strange? That's a good part of what it is about - that, and a batch of other forms of extremism. 

PS
I've continued to think on this (and have even written a couple of poems [here and here] to help me explore perspectives), and am even more strongly convinced that there are lessons for us in how the Cold War ended. More specifically, I suspect that just as zealots then saw the world did not end when we co-existed, so too will the ideologically rigid of these days, these last couple of years, come to yield to a less closed mental position when they see we do not - to use and mock a couple of the more extreme fantasies - get free 5G nor suffer mental control from various corporations [other than what has been done before through advertising and commercialism / neoliberalism], and they see our health is better and we, eventually, will thrive where the denialist fantasists do not. Already the deaths are more amongst them (on a per capita basis) than us - it will be sorrowfully long, but they will come to realise they were being told the truth. But too late for too many - and that will be on their heads, not ours.


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More on Scott's proposed religious discrimination bill

I posted a copy of my submission on the so-called "religious discrimination" bill back in January, 2020 at https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2020/01/my-draft-submission-on-morrison.html. 

I found out today (from here) that there is a survey about the resubmitted bill. My submission to the survey is below. 

*** 

From https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ReligiousDiscrimination

1. Do you believe there should be legislation to protect people from religious discrimination in certain areas of public life on the grounds of their religious belief or activity? This will include protecting people who don’t hold a religious belief as well.

Yes.

Why? 

Because I am a member of a religion that SUPPORTS LGBTIQ+ people.

However, mediaeval religious bigots who are LGBTIQ-phobic should NOT have their unspiritual, anti-religious hate protected.

Why did you chose to make this question a yes / no response? It is very obvious that the matter is not. Are those involved in this survey bigots?

2. We currently have a Sex Discrimination Act, Age Discrimination Act and Racial Discrimination Act, do you believe it is important to also have a Religious Discrimination Act as well?

No.

Why?  

Because the discrimination is less significant than the other forms of discrimination.

3. Do you support the religious discrimination legislative package that is currently before the Parliament?

No.

Why?  

Because it is a sword, NOT a shield.

4. Do you believe that parents should be able to choose to send their children to a school of their choice which aligns with their religious values?

No.

Why?  

Because some religious schools potentially teach or contribute to law breaking - such as discrimination.

If they want to teach their religions they should do that at home and in their religious places.

Also, NO public money should be involved in religious schools because of their promotion of illegal behaviour.

5. Do you consider that religious schools should be able to require all students to practice the religion affiliated with that school, if this requirement is necessary to avoid injury to the religious susceptibilities of people of that religion?

No.

Why?  

They have to live in a society where people of different faiths co-exist.

Schools are a place to learn - including learning how to live in society.

If the schools cannot manage to teach co-existence on this issue (and the disturbing occurrence of sexist behaviour from all-male elitist schools suggests very strongly that this will be a problem), then the schools are incompetent.

6. Do you believe religious schools, hospitals, aged care facilities, accommodation providers and disability service providers should be able to preference the hiring of staff of the same religious belief, as long as this is in accordance with a publicly available written policy?

No.

Why?  

Because staff should be hired on the basis of their ability, and not discriminated against on the basis of sex, gender, race, political affiliation, or any other characteristic.

I would be gravely concerned about the competence of any institution that did not do so.

7. Do you consider that religious charities (not covered by question 6) should be able to preference persons who share their religious beliefs when making employment decisions or offering services?

No.

Why?  

Again, this is a question that should not have been reduced to a clueless yes / no response.

In some circumstances, it can be difficult for volunteers (e.g., in my religious faith) to have to put up with anti-LGBTIQ+ bigots, but service provisions MUST be based on competence.

8. Do you believe religious people would be comfortable to share their beliefs in public life without the Religious Discrimination Bill 2021?

Yes.

Why?  

Because they have - and with extreme viciousness and vitriol during the Equal Marriage "postal vote" and on many other occasions.

9. Do you think it should be lawful for a person to be able to make a statement of belief so long as it is made in good faith and is not malicious, threatening, intimidating, or harassing and does not vilify a person or group or advocate the commission of a serious offence?

Yes.

Why?  

Because the conditions listed exclude all LGBTIQ-phobic statements of hate.

10. Should the committee choose to publish an anonymised representative sample of responses, do you agree to all or parts of your response being published?

No.


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