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Reasons and Issues that prompted a retired banker to research and write the Discussion Paper
Seeking the Death Penalty for One, Two or perhaps Three (on average) of the most Sadistic, Brutal, Heinous, Premeditated, Unprovoked Murderers annually that would currently be Sentenced to Penal Servitude is a minor facet of the recommendations in the Discussion Paper to reduce Australia's prisons population

Philip Johnston worked for one of the Four Pillar banks for 37 years, 10½ years of which he attended night lectures/tutorials to study finance at Macquarie Uni.  The final qualification he attained is a Masters in Applied Finance During the latter part, he sought to limit lending his employer bank’s millions to infrastructure projects that were likely to return a profit.  His entire interest in the Criminal Justice System is to -

a)     materially reduce criminal activity (across Level 1 to Level 6 of the Penalty Scale);

b)     reduce inmate numbers in prisons - 43,028 adult prisoners in jails across Australia as at 30 June 2019; and

c)     thereby manifestly decrease the $18.431b expended on Australia's Justice Sector in 2018-19, in particular the $4.416b net operating annual expenditure on Corrective Services in 2018-19 - a real increase of 35% from five years earlier in 2012-13.

The primary form of Punishment and Deterrent for Level 6 to Level 1 criminal offences (listed under 'Sample Offences' in Penalty Scale) is currently a Sentence of jail incarceration - Warehousing the Problem.

Lengthy jail incarceration for Level 4 to some Level 1 criminal offences is -

I.        counter-productive to Rehabilitation for the 98.5% circa of the 43,028 inmates that were incarcerated in Australia's state and territory prisons at 30 June 2019 that are capable of being Rehabilitated; and

II.       not crime Deterrent-effective expenditure of the Public Purse because -
A.        
there were 142 murders in the 12 months to 30 June 2018; and

 

          B.         46.4% of prisoners released during 2016-17 from a prison in Australia returned to prison within two years (to 2018-19).

 

Australians that know a thing or two about Australian prisons' effectiveness, regard a Sentence of jail incarceration as entering the Revolving Door.

The Australian public, the voters in any referendum, have no idea that the –

A.        per inmate cost of Maximum Security Incarceration is $175k pa. nor that 2,088 inmates were serving a Sentence of '20 years and over', or ‘Other, or a 'Life Sentence' as at 30 June ‘19; or

B.        average cost of Sentencing a convicted murderer to Life Without Parole in Australia is a smidgeon over $7 million -  $7,000,559; or

C.       the projected cost to imprison Anita Cobby’s five murderers in Maximum Security Incarceration until all five have died in jail is $42.525 million circa (the offenders were younger than the mean age for the 76 heinous murderers profiled in Section B).

Conventionally, the only Australians that have taken an interest in the massive annual cost of Corrective Services ($4.416 billion in 2017-18) are those that earn their living from that industry sector, or others seeking to get a piece of that giant pie.

Two Not-For-Profits associated with the Criminal Justice System profess to be a communication "facilitator" amongst -

*        "professionals, practitioners, academics and students"; or

*        "a voluntary association of individuals, departments and organisations representing a wide cross section of interests and disciplines, including branches of the criminal justice system, courts, police, corrections, prisons, mental health services, criminology and ethnic minority groups.",

to enable development of the Criminal Justice System.  However, when the Writer approached each of them, these two Not-For-Profits appear to have forgotten their respective charters.

Prima facie, some providers to the 'System' are Comfy Riding on the Gravy Train, cautious not to Upset the Applecart or Rock the Boat, because the Gravy Train is money-making for the Providers.

 

Below are the number of executions in Australian states during the 20th Century:
1900 to 1909  -  55
1910 to 1919  -  26
1920 to 1929  -  14
1930 to 1939  -  12
1940 to 1949  -    5
1950 to 1959  -  10
1960 to 1969  -    6

A.       Capital Punishment Deters Homicides that means few people are murdered annually.

B.       Capital Punishment is more humane and civilized than Life without parole.

C..      Capital Punishment is Sentenced in many of the largest countries, including two Commonwealth of Nations countries in South-East Asia, and also Japan that executed 15 convicted murderers in 2018.

In 1986 NSW (then) Opposition Leader, Nick Greiner, presented petitions to the then Premier, Nifty Nev, signed by 10,000 western suburbs citizens demanding the death penalty for the Cobby killers.

Rationale for seeking the Death Penalty to be Sentenced to an average of two heinous, callous murderers annually is not limited to -

a)       provide an effective Deterrent to future Keith Owen Goodbun's muttering to his daughter as he shot his wife, “I can go to jail for 30 f---ing years and get a bed and breakfast every day.”   Goodbun told detectives during his police interview I know where I'm going. And I'm quite f---ing happy about it, I tell you, quite happy about it.";

b)      reduce annual Murders committed, that also includes Femicide and Filicide deaths annually - In the 29 years from June 1990 to June 2018 there were 8,126 reported incidents of homicide in Australia at an average rate of 280 homicides annually

c)      reduce the Baker's Dozen Unsustainable Problems Within the Australian Prison System, one of which is that Many Prisons Are At Breaking Point With Associated Problems;

d)      reduce Australia’s whacko Recidivism/re-offending rates because Australians that know a thing or two about Australia's prisons effectiveness regard a Sentence of jail incarceration as entering the Revolving Door; and

e)      save the Public Purse the average cost per inmate ($7,000,559) of One, Two or perhaps Three convicted murderers that should be Sentenced annually to Capital Punishment.     

The heinous murders, and the unfortunate victims, detailed in Section B evidence that criminal court judges should again have the power to Sentence the Death Penalty for the most Sadistic, Brutal, Heinous, Often Unprovoked Crimes, as they did until the middle of the last century – 70 years ago – when Australia did not endure the Baker's Dozen Unsustainable Problems Within the Australian Prison System.

 

 

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