The latest call for mandatory sentencing looks as predictable as it is thin. The predictability lies in offering up a simplistic, populist solution for a complex problem. The superficiality lies in the proposals lack of adequate costing both in terms of dollars but more critically in the social consequences of a vastly expanded prison population. Perhaps worse is in the likelihood that in its reactive ease it does nothing to address the root problems of crime and risks either doing little to enhance public safety or even exacerbate a recidivist crime cycle.
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The financial cost may be high enough; the 2015 Productivity Commission lists a $103,000 annual price to keep someone in prison but the social costs are more concerning. While prolonged detention promises to keep criminals locked away from community, a solace in some regard, it fails in broader terms. Larger prisons create a larger prison population and given the continued failure of rehabilitation, swells a burgeoning repeat- offender population many who go on to pose a greater risk on release. The rapid and seemingly inevitable slide from petty juvenile crime, youth detention to dangerous adult crime and prison is a clear indicator of the failure of our justice system. But in the absence of a multi-pronged response of prevention and rehabilitation; mandatory sentencing promises only to swell candidate ranks further.
Then there is the failure on fundamental grounds of general deterrence. Aggravated home invasion and car-jacking already have legislated minimum sentencing but it is these crimes which have continue to escalate and cause so much public angst. Western Australia’s minimum sentencing on home invasion showed it to be ineffective in reducing the volume of crime. Mandatory sentencing reached a similar impasse in the Northern territory; political popular, practically ineffective.
Knowledge of increased punishment appears to act as an insignificant deterrent when many of the crimes are committed. If this is because crimes are committed in the unreality and absent reason of heightened emotion where criminals think they wil never be caught is undetermined but it adds one more argument that such laws are made to make the public feel good, not criminals feel bad. Given the recurrence of the effects of seriously mind-altering drugs in many of these crimes, in particular ice, it is not hard to imagine how the threat of the most severe punishments could have no affect at all.