The so-called “truth in sentencing” law has raised doubts on the adequate punishment for violent crimes in Australia.
SWEET-TALKED into it soon after her return from overseas, Anya Campbell agreed to meet her former boyfriend from whom she had fled for a year.
Four days later, the 24-year-old woman was found dead in a bathtub of his unit, her body battered, ribs fractured, neck bruised and her face and brain severely injured.
Ty Delavale, 26, who was said to have been in an amphetamine-induced rage when he attacked her, was originally sentenced to 15 years' jail. But, under the so-called “truth in sentencing” law, the judge slashed one third of it and then reduced a further 25% to 7½ years because he had pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of causing grievous hurt.
Delavale will now serve only 5½ years in jail before he is eligible for parole.
If that is not outrageous enough to the community, a trained kick-boxer, Benjamin Hansford, who assaulted two police officers on separate occasions and, in one of them, broke a sergeant’s right leg that later required a metal plate to hold the bone together, was given a 12-month suspended sentence and fined A$300 (RM934).
To the amazement of everyone, the magistrate admitted in court that Hansford was getting “a fair bit of a break” for the crime he had committed and allowed him to walk out a free man – to the frustration and annoyance of Police Commissioner Karl O’Callaghan.
Even State Premier Alan Carpenter was surprised that the kick-boxer had escaped a jail term and publicly described the suspended sentence as inappropriate for the serious assaults on police officers.
Then, on top of all these criticisms, emerged last week’s landmark decision of the Court of Appeal of Western Australia that rules the controversial law should also apply to all offenders since 2003 no matter how heinous the crimes may be.
By applying the provisions of the law, the offenders will now spend significantly less time in jail than they manifestly deserve.
Undoubtedly, there will be a rash of appeals by prisoners who now qualify for their sentence to be cut by at least one third.
“This ruling will have enormous ramifications and will probably open the floodgates to appeals,” remarked prominent Perth criminal lawyer Simon Watters.
Until last week’s ruling, judges and magistrates had believed that the particular section of the law applied only to crimes committed in breach of laws that were passed before 2003 when the “truth in sentencing” was implemented.
However, the panel of three judges in a split decision found that all offenders, even murderers, were entitled to what the public now regard as a “discount” in justice.
For the layman, there seems to be no justice in some of the recent cases of violent crimes, including one-punch homicide. In other words, they say that it is contrary to the common belief that “if you do the crime, you do the time”.
What, then, is the truth in the “truth in sentencing”? What is the main objective behind the creation of this law that seemingly protects the interests of the perpetrators rather than those of their victims or the families who have lost their loved ones?
Truth in sentencing has been operating in other states of Australia and some other countries as well. Why it is applied automatically on a sentence irrespective of the seriousness of the crime is the key point of contention here.
The law first came into effect in the United States on Dec 31, 1999 when it removed the power of the parole board to consider prisoners’ applications for early parole.
This means that only a judge, in passing a sentence, can determine the length of time a convicted person should serve in prison and the length of time he should be on a mandatory extended supervision. The length of time of extended supervision outside the jail must be at least a third of the length of the prison term.
This is the essence of the truth in sentencing in the US. It looks reasonable to society because it balances an appropriately tough punishment with a sensible period of rehabilitation and reintegration into the community.
There is no automatic remission of a sentence, as in Australia, which gives rise to suspicion and criticisms that judges are too soft in dealing with criminals, even those with previous convictions.
No one doubts that sending offenders to jail is a complex and difficult task that requires many factors to be taken into consideration by a court.
A judge or magistrate has to exercise his discretion within the boundary of the principles of law to ensure that the offender is adequately punished in keeping with the expectation of the community.
It would seem prudent, therefore, that a judge sets out clearly and fully his consideration and the conclusion he has derived from it in passing a sentence.
After all he, too, would like to avoid the misconception that the judiciary has failed to uphold its rightful motto that justice must not only be done, but must also be seen to be done.
So, in the final analysis, his statement on sentencing is, perhaps, the best way to win public confidence in the judiciary if they knew and understood the process by which the court imposes penalties on individual offenders.
The Roman Catholic Church's Youth Festival in Sydney, Australia has drawn a crowd of more than 150,000 ‘pilgrims of peace’ from across the world.
IT was one of the most spectacular and inspiring sights in Australia’s history. In fact, it was so fascinating it was almost beyond expectation.
The massive crowd, estimated to be at least 150,000 young people dressed mostly in red and yellow, waved flags and banners as they walked to a spot once known as the Hungry Mile in Sydney’s harbour-side.
They sang enthusiastically, at times raising their voices, while helicopters hovered above them, police security boats patrolled the foreshore and city transport came to a standstill on Tuesday.
From a bird’s eye view, the walk looked like a mass flow of humans in a sea of colour against the backdrop of the glittering harbour. It was really an extraordinary scene.
Joyous celebration: Young pilgrims from all over the world welcoming Pope Benedict XVI to the World Youth Day festivities. — AFP The event, attended by young people from 170 countries, was a curtain raiser for the World Youth Day to be held at a racecourse in Sydney’s inner suburb of Randwick today.
It will be the biggest celebration of Catholicism in what some people described as Australia’s “sin city” because of its high rate of prostitution and drug addiction.
But it is probably the best place, others observed, to have such a massive prayer for the redemption of sinners, the unbelievers and the uncommitted.
It is a day that will “change the church” in Australia, one young trainee priest remarked as he watched the opening ceremony.
“As young priests, we are faced with the very difficult task of evangelising a secular society in which God has been eradicated. I think we will see the fruits of the World Youth Day very soon after,” he added.
Pope Benedict XVI, who flew in last week for the occasion, will lead today’s mass before an estimated crowd of 500,000.
The 81-year-old pontiff is also expected to deliver the church's apology to victims of the clergy's sexual abuses of the past in Australia.
Pilgrims have come from every corner of the globe to the “very ends of the Earth”, Sydney Archbishop Cardinal George Pell said.
Calling on the people to make a commitment to faith, Cardinal Pell urged them to forgo a life of “fat, relentless egos and old-fashioned selfishness”.
His powerful voice echoed through the surprisingly silent but reflective congregation and some anti-Pope activists who had earlier won the right to attend the event.
The Federal Court ruled that the provision of a law under which protestors would be fined A$5,500 (RM17,500) for inconveniencing World Youth Day participants was invalid as it would prevent or interfere with the exercise of the fundamental freedom of speech.
No-To-Pope Coalition members are now planning to hold a rally against church policies on abortion and contraception.
But Cardinal Pell’s exhortation for humility and faithful witnesses to the world does have a wider meaning for everyone – believers and non-believers, young and old – irrespective of their religion.
He told them: “Don’t spend your life keeping your options open, because only commitments bring fulfilment.
“Happiness comes from meeting our obligations, doing our duty, especially in small matters and regularly, so we can rise to meet the harder challenges.”
Listening to him were 26 cardinals, 400 bishops and about 4,000 priests from across the nation and overseas.
Welcoming anyone, anywhere who regards himself or herself as “lost, in deep distress with hope diminished or even exhausted”, Cardinal Pell urged them to take a step further and be open to the development of their faith.
But the cheering came when Prime Minister Kevin Rudd addressed the huge crowd, whom he called “pilgrims of peace”, in French, German and Italian. Many knew he could speak Mandarin, but his linguistic ability took them by surprise.
“Too often in the history of the world, when young people travel in great numbers to other parts of the world, they do so in the cause of war,” he said. “But you are here today as pilgrims of peace.
“Some say there is no place for faith in the 21st century; I say they are wrong. Some say that faith is the enemy of reason; I say also they are wrong.”
The interesting point, however, was the 40kg wooden cross, which had travelled to every continent and then 70,000km across Australia to Sydney.
Touching the cross was an emotional moment for many of the pilgrims. A young Polish woman wept as she said that touching the cross had made her “find” her “right way in a world of uncertainties”.
An American of Spanish origin said he felt touching the cross had brought him and his mother together.
“We have problems at home,” Jesus Garcia of Texas told a reporter in Sydney.
“But she just told me how much she feels about me and I told her, too. We’ve never done that before in our lives. It’s all because of the cross.”
The Rudd government is taking steps to protect foreign workers from being exploited by unscrupulous employers.
FOREIGN workers recruited for jobs in Australia will no longer be vulnerable to the exploitation of some unscrupulous employers under a proposed legislation being considered by the Rudd federal government.
Hitherto, some workers, especially from the Philippines and other Asian countries, have allegedly been paid less than Australian workers for the same work.
They have also been denied their rights to good working conditions and have literally been forced to work long hours without overtime or any entitlement. And many of them live in crammed accommodation, a condition no local worker would tolerate.
The reason for not prosecuting most of these employers is because the foreign workers are generally not prepared to talk about the alleged exploitation – least of all testifying in court – for fear of losing their jobs and being sent back to their home countries.
These apart, administrative sanctions have proven that they are insufficient to encourage the compliance of employers, particularly those who only intend to use the scheme once or those who repeatedly breach their undertakings.
Of major concern to the government is the “emerging exploitative trend” in which foreign workers have also had their wages cut to pay for the costs of recruiting them, and the lack of medical care.
This situation arises from an acute shortage of labour in Australia to meet increasing demands of commodities by China and India.
The problem has also been exasperated by young people leaving their employment in offices, factories, cafes and restaurants for lucrative jobs in the mines, which are also short of workers.
Faced with the difficulty of getting local workers, employers have to look outside the country to ease what many regard as the labour crisis.
But whether the recruitment has been costly or whether the cost of training foreign workers to meet the Australian standard has been higher than expected, some employers have allegedly paid them less than local workers.
Some of these workers recently alleged that they had been warned that they would have their visa cancelled if they refused to work longer hours.
A discussion paper announcing the proposed legislation was released last week to employer organisations and stakeholders to seek their feedback.
The reform is primarily focused on making the programme more responsive to the labour market needs while protecting the employment and training opportunities of Australians and the rights of overseas workers. These rights include a broad range of services such as health, welfare and education that overseas workers are not generally entitled to at present.
The policy change would ensure that sponsoring employers meet the obligations that the government regards as fair and reasonable to all parties in all the circumstances until the overseas workers return to their home countries.
But one of the key obligations is that the sponsoring employers would be responsible for the cost of recruiting overseas workers, including the payment to local or overseas agents.
If these workers refuse or are unable to return to their home countries for some reasons, the sponsoring employers would have to pay A$10,000 to the government for locating and detaining them.
Employers are also not allowed to cut the pay of foreign workers for the costs of any licence, registration or membership of organisations that is mandatory for the performance of their work in Australia.
As local workers have to pay these fees themselves, the sponsoring employers are not prevented from making some arrangements to recover the fees from the overseas workers, provided that their pay does not fall below the nation’s minimum wage.
The sponsoring employers are also faced with not only the costs of educating the children of foreign workers, who are allowed entry into Australia, but also their medical expenses as a mean of “insulating” the Australian community of such costs.
They are also obliged to ensure that accommodation for overseas workers is consistent with what would be considered as a reasonable standard of living in Australia.
Under the proposed legislation, foreign workers would be given information on their rights and the lowest pay they could expect based on the minimum wage.
They would not be used during a lawful industrial action or to influence enterprise bargaining negotiations.
The legislation would also increase the powers of the authorities concerned to monitor and investigate possible non-compliance of the obligations.
The penalty for immigration fraud, which is now a maximum of 10 years’ jail or A$110,000 or both, is likely to increase before the legislation is introduced in Federal Parliament.
Much of the obligations may be viewed as favouring overseas workers at the expense of the sponsoring employers.
But the argument is that the sponsoring employers, whose businesses could be adversely affected by the serious shortage of staff, are benefiting from the labour of foreign workers.
THE tranquillity of the little tourist town of Cowra in the heart of New South Wales’ central west was shattered last week when its crime prevention officer suffered a fractured skull and her two young children and her 52-year-old mother were mercilessly killed in an axe attack.
The triple murders – allegedly by the children’s grandfather – occurred in circumstances that were not only ironical but also seemingly inexplicable.
Strange as it may seem, the alleged attacker is reportedly suffering from dementia which, according to a mental health expert, rarely turns into violence.
But what triggered the killings is unknown at present.
Did the perpetrator know what he was doing? He apparently knew he had to get away from the murder scene and was arrested 400km away in a motel where he had booked in for the night.
It is an unusual case that has puzzled the police and experts in crime and mental health who find it difficult to understand how the 69-year-old man, a member of the family who adored his two grandchildren, could suddenly turn into an alleged killer.
After his killing spree, he was said to have then sat coolly on a chair in the kitchen with the axe beside him, drinking a cup of tea until his daughter, Constable Shelly Walsh, the mother of the two children, returned in the afternoon from her police duty.
He allegedly offered her a cup of tea, explaining that he had been using the axe on some “jobs” that morning.
Walsh then went into a room and found the bodies of her children Kevin, aged seven, and Jaime, five, and her mother Mabel.
She ran outside with a severe blow to her head, screaming to the neighbours: “They’re all dead, they’re all dead inside.”
Walsh, 31, was rushed to a nearby hospital and then transferred to Sydney where she underwent an operation for a fractured skull and placed in an induced coma for 24 hours.
Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione, who visited her, said later that Walsh was in stable condition and her injury was not life threatening.
He was not sure, however, if the tragedy had fully hit her. ”Her world, as she knows it, has been turned upside down,” he said.
But the trauma of the triple axe murders showed clearly on the face of every policeman in Cowra, a town with a fascinating history from the days of steam trains to the biggest prisoner-of-war breakout by the Japanese in World War II.
More than 30 years after the war, the Japanese designed and built a large garden as a replica of the landscapes of Japan, with the Cowra hill reflecting the mountain in Japan. It is a garden where residents and visitors could relax and enjoy the peaceful environment.
But last week, the 10,000 people of Cowra tried to come to grips with the shocking events that had happened in their town.
Cowra mayor Bruce Miller, who described the tragedy as “unimaginable”, said: “When it involves children as well, you just shake your head; you feel sick in the pit of your stomach.
“I know that is the feeling that has spread throughout the town.”
Students and teachers at St Raphael Central School, who described Kevin and Jaime as “delightful and loveable” children, were so upset and traumatised that they had to receive counselling.
School principal Michael Gallagher said the tragedy was the most difficult thing he had to tackle in his 30-year teaching career.
Trauma expert Beverly Raphael of the University of Western Sydney believes that the town community would have to come to terms with the shock of the triple murders before they could begin the healing process.
“The shock is likely to be the overwhelming response, giving way to feelings of anger and helplessness,” she said. “In the face of such tragic circumstances, there is great power, courage, strength and resilience among individuals and communities.”
Ironically, Walsh, who is separated from her husband Darrell Hodges, a former policeman now living in a coastal town, had come to Cowra with her children to look after her retired parents.
Neighbours describe her parents as “happy go-lucky people”.
But since the suicide of her brother, a member of the military police, 12 months ago, her father John, who often joked with his drinking mates in a local bowling club, had increasingly become reclusive.
After the alleged murders, he went to the Hay Motel where the owner, John Whitehead, a former detective in Melbourne, recognised him as the man police wanted to interview. He phoned the police.
The senior Walsh was later charged with the triple murders and an attempted murder of his policewoman-daughter Shelly. He was remanded in custody.
Hodges, the devastated father of the children, said emotionally he felt like he was “living through a bad movie”.
“I’m still waiting for someone to come and switch off the movie,” he sobbed.