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Sentencing Length Must Be Set By Sentencing Judge

Sentencing Length Must Be Set By Sentencing Judge

28th September 2016


An organisation that advocates on behalf of Victims of crime has revealed it highlighted the problem around sentence lengths some years ago but says nobody listened.

We put forward a proposal that the sentence length and eligible release date should be set by the sentencing Judge at the time the offender is sentenced.”

Sensible Sentencing Trust Founder Garth McVicar said his organisation had been involved with a number of cases where the sentencing calculations had been wrong.

“We took these cases up with the authorities and had the eligible release dates rectified and put forward a proposal to rectify the problem.”

“While the cases we were involved in were different from the point of view the potential release date was considerably earlier, meaning the sentence was shorter than it should rightly have been, the principle was the same.”

“The cases we were involved in highlighted the difficulty in establishing the correct date an offender would become eligible for release.”

“We put forward a proposal that all sentences should be cumulative [not concurrent as at present] and the sentence length, including eligible release date, should be set by the sentencing Judge at the time the offender is sentenced.”

“The sentencing Judge has all the relevant information in front of him when he hands down the sentence, it would be a relatively simple process for that Judge to also establish the eligible release date.”

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“If we had been listened to this debacle could have been avoided and everyone, including the Corrections Department, the offender, the public and most importantly the victims’, would know exactly where they stand.”

“The victims would not be continually traumatised by a system that seems to have become incredibly offender orientated and this debacle highlights that once again.”

McVicar added, “It’s not rocket science and if we had been listened to back then it would have saved the tax payer millions of dollars.”

ENDS

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