Steele,

Couldn't agree more, sentencing should be discretionary.

Steele: A 15 year old shouldn't be put in jail for a month for stealing biscuits and some paint only to end up hanging himself a couple of days before his release.

How can you blame that on White mans Law. Suicide is a very personal activity. The only person to be blamed for the suicide id the person who suicides. No on-else. No Law. It's a personal decision.

Blaming White men, The Government or White Laws is a cop-out.

I said & I think runner agrees. Apply Aboriginal Law. A good Thigh Spearing never did anyone any harm. Ay. Rub some ashes into the wound, She'll be right. Ay.

Yutsie: Even Saudi Arabia started to move away from this stupid "One law for all"

Yutsie the Saudis have never had one Law for all. There's one Law for men & one Law for Women. Or, I really should say there is a variation of that one Law for each of the Sexes.

I suppose that if you committed a Crime in Australia that you would want to be tried under Indian Law, or what ever is the lesser. Is that right.

Hell, why don't we make it that everyone gets tried under the Laws of the Country they came from. I could see that working. Not. Is that what you are advocating Yutsie? I could see the Greenies being in favour of that, as they are in favour of allowing mahommedeans to have Sharia Law.

Just imagine. the Courts in Australia administrating the different Laws. Australian Law, Aboriginal Law X 100+ (for the different Tribes), Sharia Law x 10+ (for the different Sects.) Lawyers would be making a mint. Ay. One for the Triads, one for the Mafia, another for the Russians, Then there'd be one for the Yanks.

Quote "sentencing should be discretionary" that is a lot of the problem with slap on the wrist judges and magistrates. (Victoria for example)

Sentences were made mandatory sentencing partly because of that.

Keep mandatory but work on rules for when and when not to apply it.

We do have one set of laws for all Australians but two legal systems - one for the rich and one for the poor.

We have a Legal System but what we don't have is a Justice System.

Our prison population has almost doubled in the last couple of decades and does not reflect the proportional makeup of our society.
The Aboriginal prison population also happens to be the most incarcerated indigenous community in the world, even outranking the US black population - the USA having the largest ranked per capita prison population in the world.

About 40% of prisoners reoffend within two years of their release so the system is failing as a system of correction.

None of the politically convenient "tough on crime" strategies have worked and it costs the taxpayer about $110,000 per annum to house each prisoner.

Of course we can just keep blaming the victims and ignore everything else.

OMG Issy what is wrong with your thinking? OOps! you don't think I forgot.

Your attitude is inherently racist!

Gee the poorest, lowest educated people in society due to the oppression and crimes against them continue to make mistakes... Go figure!

The facts...

The Aboriginal people's survived happily but with some occassional cross tribal for 40,000 years.

They lived happily in a stone age type culture as hunter gatherers in one of the toughest countries to survive.

They lived at one to a great extent with nature.

Captain Cook introduced the coming of the whiteman by shooting the first aborigine he saw. The other whites who had been here before him probably did similar.

The British claiming to be Christians...Coveted the land, stole the land and killed the people. They oppressed the people breaking every Christian rule possible as they went.

The Brits treated the aborigine as a fifth class people...afterall they weren't white...

Those pesky aborigines often rebelled...How dare they! WE whites would never rebel under oppression and the destruction of our communities...lol

They fed them alcohol to further destroy their culture.

They introduced the rubbish religion of Chritianity for mor culture busting enjoyment.

They stole the kids from parents and starved them out when they wanted the land.

How dare the aborigine not be like us! Even though we had thousands of years to build our culture the aborigine was given 10 minutes to change.

Geez! And you call yourselves Christian and Australia a Christian nation...Shameful! Do unto others was never applied to the aborigine!