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Thinking Outside the Cell Defined Terms Baker's Dozen Problems Articles & Reports - Bibliography Filicide Philip Johnston's (draft) Petition (for posting on Change.org and/or GetUp) is directed to Australia's Attorney General, Mark Dreyfus, to pass a minor amendment to the relatively recent Crimes Legislation Amendment Act to allow Australia's State and Territory criminal courts to once again Sentence the 'death penalty' to perpetrators of Spouse Revenge Filicide Returning to a Sentence of Two Frightening Punishments one week apart imposed by our Forefather Governors for the Most Heinous Category of Filicide will materially reduce domestic violence in Australia
Annexure A: Pursuant to The Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act, Chapter 3—The Judicature - the Commonwealth Government shoulders a 'duty of care' that the most terrifying Punishments (previously handed down until the early 20th Century) are again Sentenced by criminal court judges in order to ensure maximum protection to innocent, defenceless children that are vulnerable to Spouse Revenge Filicide.
(i) demonstrably reduce the incidence of Spouse Revenge Filicide committed each year across Australia; and (ii) achieve a flow on reduction in - * the other four of the Five Categories of Filicide; and * the annual incidence of Femicides; and (iii) materially reduce the cost of jail incarceration until death by natural causes. The average cost per inmate serving a Sentence of Life Without Parole (based on the average annual cost of Maximum Security Incarceration in 2019) across 76 Heinous Murderers that murdered 200 Australians (profiled in Section B) over the last 30 years is $7,000,559 per inmate. To safeguard as much as humanly possible all children that are vulnerable to Spouse Revenge Filicide, it behooves the Commonwealth Parliament to amend the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Torture Prohibition and Death Penalty Abolition) Act 2010 (Cth) to enable criminal court judges in Australia's six States and two Territories to revert to Sentencing to each father, step-father or former partner (over 18 years of age) found guilty Beyond any doubt of executing their child or step-child or children (of a former female partner) adjudged in the category of Spouse Revenge Filicide both frightening Corporal Punishment, and a week later fear-engendering Capital Punishment. Section 6 (below) evidences that each of these Punishments were frequently Sentenced in Australian States and Territories up until the early 20th Century, albeit more intensely Sentenced in the 19th Century. Section 2 of this Petition evidences that three meals a day and a warm bed at The University Of Crime, with its Rapidly Revolving Door, is not a cost-effective Punishment to Deter inter alios fathers and step-fathers from executing their child, or children often in sadistic revenge against their former wife or partner. 1. The crime of Filicide. Spouse Revenge Filicide can be reduced, and in many years eliminated Filicide is the killing of a child by their mother, father or step-parent. Fathers and step-fathers commit roughly half (say 12 Filicides) of the 25 circa Filicide murders each year across Australia over recent years. Casual empiricism of the gory executions of children by fathers or step-fathers chronicled in Annexure A suggests that approx one third of those 12 circa Filicides committed by fathers or step-fathers annually (say 4 Filicides annually) fall within the category of Spouse Revenge Filicide where a parent or step-parent 'puts to death' a child, or children, to enact traumatic revenge upon their former spouse. This Petition's goal is to materially reduce, and avoid in some future years, the four children circa that are executed annually by fathers or step-fathers with the intent to make their spouse suffer extreme mental anguish. Crucially, the severity of the afore-sought Sentence upon male 'child-executioners' that are judged to be a Spouse Revenge Filicide, will also reduce the frequency of the other Four Categories of Filicides, because learning of a few barbarous males that had executed their child, step-child or children, being savagely flogged and a week later hung by the neck until dead, would have a flow-on effect on other parents experiencing domestic anxiety - a) contemplating killing their child or children; or b) husbands/intimate partners committing Femicide. Section 3 (below) evidences that humans habitually prioritise life over death, even if it requires accepting up to 20+ years Sentence in a tiny jail cell as Punishment for manslaughter, rather than contest a 1st Degree murder charge. Ipso facto, the prospect of being Sentenced to hanging by the neck, a week after an painful infliction of Corporal Punishment will materially reduce all Five Categories of Filicide, as well as the incidence of Femicide. Annexure B 'Filicide statistics - Australia since 2000' provides data (that supports the above average of 25 Filicide deaths across Australia annually) from - * Australian Institute of Criminology * academics and Monash University, including "An Overview of Filicide" - Sara G. West, MD 2007; and * journalists including "When parents kill" - ABC News - Hayley Gleeson - 22 March 2021 Below are details of nine children executed by their father (or step-father) in the last 4½ years that fall within the category of Spouse Revenge Filicide. There has been at least one other similar Filicide murders in Australia since 2018:
The above four recent Filicide deaths involving the execution of nine young children are listed towards the top in Annexure A.
This Petition
references a few eminent psychoanalyses of virtually every facet of
Filicide that have
followed the inaugural milestone research "Filicide, tragically, is a permanent act, and the key to avoiding the devastating effects, for the perpetrator, the victim, and the community, is prevention." 2. Prison incarceration causes way more problems than it solves and is a failed and costly "...prevention." The Bakers Dozen Unsustainable Problems render jail incarceration an impotent and costly Punishment and an ineffective Deterrent. Alas, 99% circa of Australians (beyond their teenage years) lack the attention span necessary to read and comprehend the Bakers Dozen Unsustainable Problems chronicled herein. If more Australians possessed the capacity to Read, Comprehend and Respond, our State and Territory Govts. would not be continuing to pour $19.651 billion dollars annually into the Total Justice Sector, of which the vast majority namely $5.091b (2019-20) under the category of Corrective Services being expended on housing over 41,000 inmates in tiny steel cages across 112 custodial facilities at The University Of Crime. In theory, inmates should have paid the price of their crime and leave jail intent upon re-joining the workforce. But in practice over 50% of inmates released from The University Of Crime at Australia's state and territory prisons, return to prison within 2½ years, largely due to the loss of life sustaining skills that inmates are often confronted by upon release from a highly institutionalised environment, namely “institutionalised personality traits”, including “distrusting others, difficulty engaging in relationships [and] hampered decision-making”. In 2020-21, 53.1 percent of released prisoners had returned to corrective services within two years (either prison or community corrections). Annexure H lists four Australian State and Territories Social Services that have been underfunded amidst COVID-19 partially due to the Australia's burdensome reliance on prison incarceration, with its Rapidly Revolving Door, crippled by its Bakers' Dozen Unsustainable Problems, that evaporates way too much of Public Purses annually.
The average cost per inmate serving a Sentence of Life Without Parole (based on the average annual cost of Maximum Security Incarceration in 2019) across 76 Heinous Murderers that murdered 200 Australians (profiled in Section B) over the last 30 years is $7,000,559 per inmate. The total cost of Maximum Security Incarceration across these 76 Heinous Murderers will be a smidgeon over half a billion Australian dollars. Yet as at 30 June 2019, 2,088 inmates were serving a Sentence of '20 years and over', 'Life Sentence' or 'Other', that includes 1,790 that have been convicted of Murder. Therefore the strain on the Public Purse to incarcerate nearly all of these 76 Heinous Murderers (profiled in Section B) until they die in a prison cell is merely the tip of a large iceberg beneath that materially inhibits available funding of other necessary Social Services. Between 1989 and 1993 Ivan Milat viciously and sadistically murdered seven backpackers, aged 19 to 22, in the Belanglo State Forest, 15 kilometres from Berrima NSW. Five of the victims were foreign backpackers visiting Australia (three German, two British). Two were Australian travellers from Melbourne. Five of the seven victims were females. Ivan Milat attempted suicide at least twice, cost the Aust. taxpayer $175,000 pa for 23 years in jail = $4.025m. Then high hospital costs were incurred with an armed guard required. Most Australians would agree that Ivan Milat should have been executed, but the laws did not allow him to be sentenced to the same penalty that he bestowed on those seven trusting backpackers. Martin Bryant is serving 35 life sentences, plus 1,035 years, all without the possibility of parole in Hobart's Risdon Prison. He should have been executed in 1998. Jailing Martin Bryant will cost the taxpayer over $8m circa by the time that he dies in jail. Maximum Security Incarceration (until they die) of the five convicted rape/killers of nurse, Anita Cobby, in 1985 will ultimately cost the NSW Public Purse $45.5 million circa. 'Never to be Released' lists several other heinous criminals that should have been Sentenced to execution. ost Lifers deemed never to be released are dying a thousand deaths; experiencing a manic depressive QOL. 3. Capital Punishment Patently Deters Homicides Below are three extracts from Capital Punishment Patently Deters Homicides:
"Plea bargaining
Prima facie civil liberties groups that oppose the Death Penalty have short concentration spans. By nature they lack the Read, Comprehend and Respond in Writing skills necessary to grasp the myriad of impacting components of Australia's complex and multi-faceted Criminal Justice System. If opponents of the re-introduction of both Corporal Punishment and Capital Punishment in Australia did possess requisite R, C and R skills, some disagree-rs would have accepted this Writer's invitation at www.AustraliaSlowlearner.world to - A) review his Discussion Paper titled 'Thinking Outside the Cell ; - B) complete the associated Peer Review Form that provides ample opportunity to disagree with this Writer's beliefs/opinions/assertions therein; and C) email their completed Peer Review Form to this Writer's nominated email address (provided in www.AustraliaSlowlearner.world). The opportunity remains open for civil libertarians inter alios to undertake A), B) and C) above via www.AustraliaSlowlearner.world and so provide a variety of written perspectives on this consequential issue, because their efforts might save innocent lives. The same civil liberties groups that oppose the Death Penalty also chose to believe that the prospect of a Sentence of Capital Punishment for 1st Degree murder is not a potent Deterrent to others committing murder, when patently experts have opined to the highest levels of authority, primarily in the USA and Europe, that the threat of being Sentenced to the Death Penalty is an effective Deterrent. Capital Punishment Patently Deters Homicides provides such expert testimonies. Capital Punishment is more humane and civilised than Life Without Parole In addition to the three primary interrelated pillars of Australia's Criminal Justice System are also forensic services and academia. Australia's Criminal Justice System is a network of government and private agencies intended to manage accused and convicted criminals. These five pillars are fashioned to support the ideals of legal justice. Unfortunately, these ideals can become conflicted, particularly on the issue of whether the Death Penalty is a potent Deterrent to others committing homicide. Doubtless that some Folk that derive their income from working within Australia's 112 custodial facilities, hold the view that the Death Penalty is not an effective Deterrent to heinous murders and that lengthy jail incarceration is the optimum remedy. Those income-derived Folk may have associates within academia adept at chronicling papers/reports to that effect, but generally such papers are bereft of empirical forecasts and set out the basis of those forecasts. Dating back even before the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, rulers believed that a painful, drawn out, public execution transmitted the most potent message to others not to similarly transgress. Joan of Arc was also executed brutally. Swift and cruel punishment was deemed necessary to warn others of the likely consequences of similarly transgressing.
The research papers referred to herein evidence that the causes of Filicide are infrequently vanilla. But more often are a constellation of complex contributing factors, particularly when a mother kills her child or children, even well after birth. Seemingly such murders may be due to hormonal imbalances and/or stressors associated with childbirth and caring for an infant/s. Below is an extract from When parents kill - ABC News - Hayley Gleeson - 22 Mar 2021
Below is an extract from An Overview of Filicide Sara G. West, MD 2007:
Annexure E chronicles eight mothers that committed Filicide/s in Australia that gained a lot of media reporting.
Fathers and step-fathers that kill their child or children are not affected by hormonal imbalance which is the reason why this Petition seeks the death penalty for only males (over 18) that are found guilty Beyond any doubt of Spouse Revenge Filicide. Below is a second pertinent extract from An Overview of Filicide Sara G. West: Not all Filicides are children under 18 years of age. Annexure D reveals young women murdered. The majority were also raped. A few victims were the child of an aggrieved parent or step-parent. 5. The numbers of Filicides annually may be higher than reported.
Western society has jumped ahead along the punishment/deterrent curve ostensibly due to the illicit drug scourge. Heavily drug addicted, Andrew William O'Sullivan, is in jail for the manslaughter of 22 month old, Mason Jet Lee, at Caboolture Qld in 2016 due to regularly beating his female partner's young child. Toddler, Mason, suffered infectious cellulitis, a prolapsed anus, severe nappy rash, a fractured leg, constipation, abscesses, mouth ulcers, peritonitis (inflammation of the membrane lining the abdominal wall), septicaemia (allowed faecal matter to contaminate his bloodstream), fractured coccyx, bruises to the forehead, jaw, chest and abdomen. 22 months old, Mason, died from sepsis, as a result of a fatal blow to his abdomen (inflicted by drug addicted O'Sullivan) which ruptured his small intestine. He was left in agony and further abused for 5 days before his little body finally gave in. Below is an extract from Filicide: the Australian story - published by Cambridge University Press - 18 Dec 2020 - that quantify inter alia the influence of hard drug dependence on recent Filicides in Australia:
6. Execution was not foreign to Australian Courts. 1,648 convicted felons were executed in the 147 years from 1820 to the final hanging at Pentridge Prison in 1967 The initial 120 years after settlement in 1788 evidenced massive rates of hangings across Australia. Australia's Forefather Governors had identified the most cost-effective method to Deter crime, when they could not afford to build lots of tiny steal cages. 'Capital Punishment' - Ivan Potas and John Walker - Australian Institute of Criminology - Feb 1987 provides a table that evidences that between 1820 and the final execution of Ronald Ryan at Pentridge Prison in 1967, 1,648 people were executed, invariably by hanging and nearly all males. In 1835 the population of Australia was 113,354 (81,929 males + 31,425 females) - 34 males were hanged in 1835 - 0.041% of the male population. That represents one male in every 2,439 males was executed in the 365 days across Australian prisons (one hanging every 10.73 days). Other years in the early 19th Century had higher per capita annual execution rates eg. 1829. Since Federation in 1901, 114 people were legally executed in Australia.[3] 7. People that have spoken in favour of Capital Punishment "The main reason for the abolition of the death penalty is the squeamishness of politicians, who enjoy office but do not like all the duties which power loads on to their (often rather narrow) shoulders. Far easier to them to leave the matter to some trembling constable with a gun in a dark street, who can be disavowed if it all goes wrong later." Below is an extract from journalist, David Sergeant article It’s time to bring back the death penalty in the Australia Spectator - 15 Jan 2019: "Rigorous precautions can ensure incorrect execution is all but impossible, with the death penalty available only in cases in which evidence is diverse and overwhelming. The accused must be convicted by a unanimous jury of their peers and their conviction open to repeated appeal.
Queensland Federal MP, George Christensen wanted to see the death penalty introduced. –The Courier Mail – 2013 8. Punishment to be Sentenced to each male (18 years and over) that has been found guilty Beyond any doubt of having committed Spouse Revenge Filicide Below is the Sentence of Punishment (sought by this Petitioner) for each father or step-father (over 18 years of age) found guilty (in an Australian criminal court) Beyond any doubt of executing their child or step-child or children (classified as a Level 1 'criminal offence') that is deemed to fall within the category of Spouse Revenge Filicide:
Predicated upon one of the oldest metaphors observed by Homo sapiens, namely "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth", Australia's Commonwealth Attorney General is impelled to lift the recent caveat that denies Australia's six States and two Territories return to Sentencing the 'death penalty' upon fathers and step-fathers found guilty Beyond any doubt of executing their offspring where those executions are deemed to be Spouse Revenge Filicide. There is no greater obligation upon Homo sapiens than to safeguard its offspring when at their most vulnerable. Responsibility to amend the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Torture Prohibition and Death Penalty Abolition) Act 2010 (Cth) falls squarely upon the Commonwealth Attorney General, Michaelia Cash. Christian folk from a bygone era understood the rationale of "an eye for an eye":
The legal obligation to impose the strongest possible Deterrent to male parents or step-parents to executing their child or children (that fall within the category of Spouse Revenge Filicide) behooves the Commonwealth Attorney General to amend the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Torture Prohibition and Death Penalty Abolition) Act 2010 (Cth) to enable Australian judges in our six States and two Territories to revert to Sentencing Frightening Corporal Punishment and Fear-Provoking Capital Punishment upon any male (over 18 years of age) found guilty Beyond any doubt of Spouse Revenge Filicide.
Section 6 above details that each such Punishment was Sentenced plentifully in Australian States and Territories up until the early part of the 20th Century. Refer to Whipping as a criminal punishment in Australia. Hanging by the neck until death was an exceedingly common occurrence through the 19th Century. 9. Since 2009 the Department of Social Services has assigned considerable weight on protecting our most vulnerable, initially conducting major three year forums National Framework for Protecting Australia’s Children. Multiple politicians and domestic violence authorities from across Australia attended every three years Below is an extract from Families Australia: Submission to the Department of Social Services on the National Framework for Protecting Australia’s Children: Recommendations for the Third Action Plan 2015-18 (submitted in April 2015):
Patently, the only new, untried initiative with a high likelihood of reducing child abuse and neglect and enhance children’s wellbeing at the earliest possible time that will drive substantial and sustained change and which will also engender community support and will prevent abuse and neglect from occurring in the first instance is the re-introduction of both Corporal Punishment and Capital Punishment to each father, step-father or former partner (over 18 years of age) found guilty of executing their child or step-child or children, or former partner's child or children. Below is an extract from Femicide: an intractable history (Australian Women’s History Network - 27 Feb 2020) where three accredited Australian university academics acknowledge that current "Law and policing have long proved weak remedies to a seemingly intractable problem":
Below is an extract from Australia has a 'particular problem' with filicide, but experts say we're failing to find solutions (ABCNews - where Professor Thea Brown, Monash University acknowledges that Australia has failed to identify a remedy to reduce annual Filicide deaths:
Our Forefather Governors identified and practiced the " ... more imaginative and sustainable solutions including primary prevention....". 10. Summary of reasons to re-introduce both Corporal Punishment and Capital Punishment to demonstrably reduce Spouse Revenge Filicide, with flow-on reductions in the other Four Categories of Filicide and also reduce annual Femicide deaths The Commonwealth Government holds a duty of care to allow its States and Territories to once again Sentence frightening Corporal Punishment and fear-engendering Capital Punishment to demonstrably reduce Spouse Revenge Filicide. Such a Dual Punishment will achieve a flow-on reduction in the other four of the Five Categories of Filicide and also reduce annual Femicides
To safeguard as much as humanly possible prospective future child victims of Spouse Revenge Filicide, Federal Parliament must amend the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Torture Prohibition and Death Penalty Abolition) Act 2010 (Cth) to enable Australian judges in the six States and two Territories to revert to Sentencing - a) to each father or step-father (over 18 years of age) found guilty Beyond any doubt of executing their child or step-child or children; b) where such filicide execution/s are adjudged in the category of Spouse Revenge Filicide; 11. This Petitioner disfavours Federal and State Govt. referendums that thus far have all been compulsory to vote at. Those referendums failed to provide Australians with all relevant information in order to make an informed decision, thus contributing to so few referendums having been approved. Only the votes of people who are informed about a particular issue and want to cast a vote should be measured Below are extracts from "Referendums in Australia":
12. Time to vote to demand the Commonwealth Govt re-allow the maximum (available) possible Deterrent be Sentenced to reduce annual Spouse Revenge Filicides, to protect our most vulnerable It is now time for Australians that want to contribute to reducing the incidence of vulnerable children being executed by a parent or step-parent in this country to - (a) nail their colours to the mast by electronically voting for this Petition hereunder; and (b) ask their family, friends and associates to similarly hoist their flag to the pinnacle for properly protecting our vulnerable newborns.
Conscience obligates Folk that read this Petition and agree its arguments/reasons to register and vote, or access voting via their Facebook or Google username and password.
If after say a three year trial of Sentencing the Dual Punishments to fathers, step-fathers and former male partners found guilty Beyond any doubt of Spouse Revenge Filicide, a notable reduction in - a) domestic violence does
not materialise; and then the Commonwealth Parliament would be entitled to again commit those guilty of Spouse Revenge Filicide to tiny steel cages, many residing there until they die, albeit at a material burden upon Australian State's flagging Public Purses. |
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