Hi all

continued to: Dr Ken MACNAB

Mum's killer is involved in a Restorative Justice process - there is high hope for his recovery. As to people like Ivan MILAT, John GLOVER & the like: what do we do with them? What about Lindy CHAMBERLAIN?

I knew John GLOVER quite well during the late-80s & early-90s as a Four'n'Twenty Pie rep. We also went to the same dentist in Mosman. There was no warning there. Guilt? I trust the Police investigators. With Ivan MILAT: I used to shoot target pistol with members of his family at Bowral Pistol Club. He was definitely weird. Guilty? Little doubt about that one. Lindy CHAMBERLAIN was a tragic miscarriage of justice. I don't know Lindy, but I do know Michael.

You might deduce that I communicate with both the Executive Management of the NSW Police Force - not "service" - & also 'senior people' within the Department of Corrective Services. Some politicians are also very helpful. But organisations such as Ken MARSLEW's Enough Is Enough & Chuck COLSON's Prisons' Fellowship International are doing an outstanding job in trying to focus & remould practical changes that will reduce criminality & minimise recidivism.

Thanks again Ken. I wish you well. Maybe we could meet each other at an appropriate time & place? You are welcome to make direct contact with me.

Cheers all

The author claims the punative regime is totally ineffective for marginalized groups, as exemplified by the Cronulla violence. It just provides launching pads for scurrelous polies and shock jocks he suggests.

Lets look at one incident and then apply his 3 step program for world peace and a secular utopian Millenium from his previous article found here: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=642

The incident:

25 or so Lebanese youths, with baseball bats terrorize patrons of a MacDonalds in the Cronulla region in 1998.
Ok... step one

“Balanced Media Coverage” (err.. we don’t call them ‘of middle eastern’ appearance ?)

Now Step 2

We call the United Nations.. yep..thats gotta help.

We rang them but they said it would probably all be over by the time they got there, and besides Lebanon is the swinging vote for Russia to be selected for a particular committee of interest to them, so we don’t want to annoy the Russians by annoying the Lebanese by reporting their ethnicity in this attack

Step 3 Open up a dialog...

NOWwwwww we are “tallking”.. this HAS to be the solution !

They stomp on us, wield bats on our backs and heads if we tell them to get lost, yep..DIALOGUE.. aah.. we need more of that.

THE REALITY
The police come, they brought the dog squad, they arrested numerous perpetrators, some were bitten (maybe they were RUNNING ?)

Then, the Magistrates berate the police
The Perpetrators sue the police.
The Police morale reaches an all time low
The Lebanese males are now empowered. (and richer)

Can someone tell me how ‘dialogue’ would have prevented this attack ?

Perhaps we should have expressed sympathy for their marginalized condition ? Hmmmm...*whack/OUCH *.... nope..that didnt work.

Is it just POSSIBLE that humans are sinful creatures.. lustful for resources and power, are tribal, and advance the interests of them and theirs at the expense of others ?

Dr Ken, I’m providing you a reading list..

-Genesis -Exodus -Numbers -Joshua -1 and 2 Samuel, -1 and 2 Kings.

You will learn a lot about human nature and its unchanging character and need for Divine Grace.

Ken McNab is opposed to capitol punishment, mandatory sentences and incarcerating minorities. Uh huh. His rationale appears to be, that since criminal behaviour is increasing, these punishments do not work. Therefore they are social problems that can be alleviated through social policies. I can partly agree with him there.

Naturally, Ken dodges the two primary reasons for why serious criminal behaviour in affluent Western societies is increasing when it should be falling. Opposing both of these social policies is PC verboten.

The first, is the importation of crime prone ethnic groups. That poor choice of immigrant groups is directly responsible for much of our present crime wave can be judged from the fact that in 1991, ethnic lobby groups successfully lobbied the Federal government to prevent Australian statisticians at the ABS from keeping records on ethnic related crime. Seems that these ethnic groups were embarrassed at what the statisticians were finding. Ken’s own figures about aboriginal incarceration rates validates the notion that some groups are either culturally or genetically more prone to serious criminal behaviour.

The second, is that we are teaching children to admire criminal behaviour through our culture. Past Australian generation simply took for granted that the media had the power to influence the minds of children and Australian censorship laws were strict. Today we see nothing wrong with the entertainment industry targeting our children with movies, songs and computer games which endorse violence, criminality and illegal drug abuse

Perhaps exchange the academic words ‘punitive obsession’ with ‘revenge’ - sometimes also called ‘payback’.

It’s a crude equaliser. You do the wrong thing, okay we will fix things by hurting you. Really dumb, social science.

Revenge got locked into our legal system partly by a Christian belief that human beings act out their lives under the influence of ‘free will’. Thereby people are labelled as intrinsically ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Bad people have to be punished. That will make them good. Or just be done with it and send them straight to hell. Dumb social science.

I invite anybody to go into a prison and discover who is actually in there. You find that every inmate has a sorry history. Not hard to find out why they acted in the way they did. Being sympathetic does not mean we absolve the wrong doer. But it does show that ‘revenge’ is a stupid, primitive remedy for wrongdoing.

Obviously, it is those closest to the problem who understand the problems best. Social workers, lawyers, judges, even some prison workers. These are the professionals who experience at first hand where the offender is coming from, their personal history, why they offended and deterrents and remediation that actually work best.

Politicians and media know little of this. Yet they are the harbinger of punitive laws. Laws that don’t work.

Another major obstacle is that any debate along these lines arouses a public fear that we are asking the legal system to be lenient on those who break the law. This is definitely not a question of lenience. It is a question of what penal system works, what is just and what best remedies negative behaviour.

We already know that primitive notions of ‘revenge’ and ‘payback’ are counterproductive. They simply escalate crime

I am fascinated in this debate by the profound anti-democratic sentiments exhibited by many of the participants. There are 13 states in the US without the death penalty; 37 states that have the death penalty. All of this by democratic vote. As far as I know the voters in Australia have never had the opportunity to vote on the issue, doubtless because there is too much concern that they might re-instate capital punishment. Politicians are denigrated as "followers". Isn't that democracy? If a politician does not do what I want, I will vote to throw him out, and put in someone who will.

The main reasons why I think we should have a death penalty are:

1. To make absolutely sure that we never have any problems with this person again. (The recidivism rate for hanged persons is, I believe, zero).

2. To exact revenge on behalf of society for what they have done.

3. To achieve the above aims with the least possible expenditure of public money.

It would not be necessary to have frequent executions, one or two a year would be enough to encourage the rest.

The other reform I would like to see would be to bring back the lash, particularly for wealthy corporate criminals who have defrauded the public of money. If one of these criminals was stripped to the waist, tied to a triangle in Martin Place and given a Botany Bay Dozen (25 lashes), the international TV rights would be considerable, and tickets could be sold to spectators. The moneys raised could then go to the people he had defrauded. We could even make a thing of it and have the flogger and his assistants dressed up in uniforms from the NSW Corps.

Another useful reform would be to get the prison population working again. The enormous cost of prisons at present could be offset by prisoners working on the roads, at telephone switchboards, and many of the other jobs they do in the US.

Ha Ha, yes it is the last refuge of politicians frightened of losing the next election - they play the "Law & Order" game - never fails - create an outside enemy - outside of the family or home, outside of the state, outside of the country - whatever.

A "common enemy" creates an atmosphere of fear, hatred that can then be exploited to usher in "new laws" and draconian measures against certain, or all citizens of the state. conservatives have long used this strategy, and we, the citizens seem to fall for it everytime. Why?

The War on Terror is a brilliant invention of conservative minds, both hgere and overseas. It has the potential to enslave us to the politics of fear forever. Ugh, certainly hope not!

George Dubya could have demonstrated his "christian" commitment by turing the other cheek to Sep 11th, or just declared the people responsible as Hienous arch-criminals and hunted them down using Interpol, and small military detachments deployed and working in conjunction with other countries.

Instead, the invasion of Iraq has created a power void that every radical terrorist group and hostile natioon is trying to fill. Another Vietnam! To quote Peter, Paul and Mary, "When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn....?"

Charles