@osw

in just one line...what is your stand on abortion?

thks

A.J.PHILIPS...

No, I was not attempting to be derisive nor deprecating - I was merely seeking from you, a succinct précis of a more practical and effective sentencing paradigm ?

Rather than the tired, convoluted mess we're confronted with daily in our criminal courts, where there appears to be no standards nor criterion in which the judiciary should be able to follow ? Despite their claims to the contrary.

You hear these mutterings in the dim corridor's of our courthouses, as various counsel peer hopefully at the days listings '...hope to get old Judge 'Bloggs' for my client's sentencing, he's a timid old fart...' ? Or visa versa. Inconsistency proliferates and abounds throughout our criminal justice system, which certainly doesn't serve the interests of justice. For anyone, litigant or otherwise I would've thought ?

Hi (again) PLATYPUSS1900...

Mate, that's a tough call to answer your question (without qualification) in one simple short sentence ? There's a certain stage during the progress of pregnancy, where I believe the woman 'owns' her own body, and the embryo she carries within her.

Up until a certain time (precisely what, I think the 12 week?) the foetus may be aborted by a properly qualified Doctor. Or in other circumstances, where the life of the woman is in peril.

My single sentence answer to you; - Yes and no ? But depending who reads this, I'm either right or wrong, morally. Alternatively, I'm right or wrong depending on a number of circumstances - legally speaking ? I'm buggered whichever way I jump eh ?

@osw

let me help you
i said earlier, truth is always simple
dont complicate it
your knickers get tied in knots when you are not living in truth and you end up with lengthy poirotic justifications

life starts at conception
respect that
child bearing women has all the say on their bodies..sure
but when a child is conceived...her choice and say ends (only exception is when the fetus is life threatening)
while she has all the say on her body, she owe it to her baby all the care to make sure she doesnt get pregnant

the reason why i ask that question is not to go off track

my point is we have very serious discussion here in this forum on the rights of a convicted murderer but we are so careless over the life of the innocent unborn human baby .. whose only wrong is to be the child of its careless parents...who will rather choose to kill it (murder as it is premeditated) for economic and lifestyle convenience

those who argues so strongly for the convicted murderers not to be hanged or shot, and in the same breath say it is ok for mothers to terminate the life of thier unborn.... think again.

Platypus1900, don't you think you are being a bit hypocritical carrying on about the 'sanctity of life' in your stance against abortion, but yet quite happy to allow our criminal law system to kill people as a punishment for them killing others?

Yet, here we are in Australia where legal, safe abortion is available, but not capital punishment.
Doesn't this fact tell you where the majority of Australians stand on these issues, and if we are living in a democratic country then that is how it is?

Sheesh, o sung wu, that’s a mighty big topic!

I think the current sentencing rationales and principles are a pretty good foundation to work with. They took us centuries to develop (with the Enlightenment being a big step forward). However, many of the aims and principles are contradictory, and there are two main ‘schools of thought’, and models of ethics, that individual judges will favour - depending on their worldview - in order to deal with the inherent contradictions. There is the justice model (retribution) versus the welfare model (rehabilitation); then, to complicate things further, there’s ethical formalism and utilitarianism.

The level of discretion that allows judges to lean one way more than the other inevitably leads to injustices; but then, removing all discretion from judges would lead to even more injustices (just imagine how unfair you would have been in your duties as a police officer if you couldn’t have exercised any discretion).

Unfortunately, judges who take more of a welfare/utilitarian approach to sentencing are wrongly accused of looking out for the offender’s welfare to the detriment of the victims’ needs. I’ve gone over the reasons as to why this is misguided a few times on OLO. What I will add now, however, is that it is largely just assumed that more punitive sentencing will fulfil the needs of victims. What seems provide more restitution to victims is providing them with a sense of power again by handing them some ownership and control over their own conflicts, rather than having the state snatch it from them only to professionalise the whole process with little to no input from the victim.

Though still in their infancy, restorative justice measures (when properly prepared and done in the right circumstances) have been met with some overwhelmingly positive results for both victims and offenders. A mix of qualitative and quantitative research techniques with conference-only and conference-court studies here suggest that, generally speaking, three main things seem to provide victims with the greatest sense of restitution and enable them to move on. Surprisingly, a sincere apology comes at a distance third.

Continued…