Emeritus Professor Arie Freiberg

Contesting corporal punishment: Abolitionism, transportation and the British imperial project - University of Sydney - Oct 2008 - Isobelle Barrett Meyering

Professor Peter Grabosky ANU College of Asia and the Pacific

Professor Peter Graboskyt author of "ON THE HISTORY OF PUNISHMENT IN AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND"

Title: Will you or a colleague/s review my paper titled 'Looking Outside the Cell' which re-introduces Corporal and Capital Punishment - on a DVD and USB Stick Flash Drive?

My name is Philip Johnston. I retired 10 years ago from CBA where I administered and financed several very large infrastructure projects (purchase of Sydney Airport and Brisbane Airports post- privatization, construction of Sydney Harbour Tunnel by Transfield/Kumagai et al).

Attachment 'A' is a PDF of a Masters in Applied Finance degree that I rec'd from Macq Uni in 2001, after receiving a B.A. with a major in Economics a long while earlier.

Over recent months I have expended hundreds of hours researching the Australian Criminal Justice System, in particular Corrective Services due to a Baker's Dozen Problems - Attachment 'B'.

You are the first academic that I have written to because of the below pertinent extract from the opening page of your article/paper that appeared in AUST & NZ JOURNAL OF CRIMINOLOGY (July 1991) (139.143) titled:

ON THE HISTORY OF PUNISHMENT
IN AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND

Those engaged in research on the history of punishment may be so for a variety of motives.
Some may be driven by pure intellectual curiosity, others, perhaps, by sublimated punitive
impulses. Others still, not content with a mere understanding of the forces which
have shaped penal policy, seek to influence these forces now and in the future.
But our concern here is history as an independent variable: Of what use is it? What purpose
does it serve? What can it achieve?

Research on the history of punishment can enhance our understanding of
contemporary issues. Occasionally, even governments seek out historical knowledge.
(eg, Gurr, Grabosky and Hula, 1977; Grabosky 1977). Lamentably, governmental
interest in affairs of the past now appears all but non-existent, and practitioners
of criminal justice tend not to be appreciative of historical inquiry. At best, the
nostalgia buffs among them find it interesting, if not terribly useful. The more cynical,
whose vision extends no further than the next election, are probably inclined to the
attitude of Henry Ford: 'History is more or less bunk.'

History and Practice

This lack of enthusiasm shown by today's policy makers and administrators should not,
however, discourage scholars from adopting an historical perspective. I would argue that
in addition to creating knowledge for its own sake, historical research can make a very
real contribution to the development and implementation of contemporary policy.

I have read all the 150+ documents, reports, discussion papers etc listed in Attachment 'C' and linked them all with embedded threads. None of those 'papers' have attempted what I seek to achieve, namely to write a paper ('Looking Outside the Cell') that sets out how to material decrease the tangible and intangible costs of the Baker's Dozen Problems ostensibly by -

A) substituting half of traditional jail sentences with a lean sentence of Corporal Punishment and then commencing Rehabilitation and Education based on Restorative Justice successfully practiced in Scandinavia and Texas USA; and

B) re-introducing Capital Punishment for 'Sadistic, Brutal, Premeditated, Unprovoked Murder/s' where the inmate is 'never to be released'.

In the majority of the 150+ documents, I have extracted the text from a downloaded PDF and saved the text in a dedicated htm file and coloured pertinent parts of those reports as I read them. Attachment 'D' is my analysis of Queensland Drug and Specialist Courts Review – Report Summary and Recommendations - Nov 2016.

I am hopeful that an academic or two will read my 'Looking Outside the Cell' (hereinafter "My Paper") which I seek to get published on a 'prison reform' N-F-P website. Any contributions by an academic/s would be acknowledged in my publication.

I have also created a lot of Defined Terms in order to avoid uncertainty/misinterpretation - Attachment 'E'.

The Father of Restorative Justice, Captain Alexander Maconochie, encountered strident criticism for his 'soft' treatment of inmates during his four year stewardship at Norfolk Island from 1840, amidst an era of vicious physical punishment; 'soft' treatment wasn't the Current Wisdom for controlling hardened criminals on 'works gangs'.

Doubtless, today, there are opponents of 'Looking Outside the Cell', because they hold the Current Wisdom, albeit that it wasn't the Current Wisdom amongst 97% of the 108 billion 'circa' Homo sapiens' 125,000 years' existence on terra firma.

Will you or a colleague/s review my paper titled 'Looking Outside the Cell' which is on a DVD and also USB Stick Flash Drive? A burnt DVD provides greater integrity and will auto open at my covering letter to you (in Windows operating system), whereupon the reader can readily navigate by clicking on embedded threads therein.

Attachment F is the cover of the DVD.

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