Back To Reality

Well, the big holiday is over and I'm in the process of coming to terms with cold, dark, winter days. Not much seems to have changed while I've been away. The prisons are still bursting at the seams. People are still arguing that mothers should not be jailed. No mention of similar treatment for fathers, I notice.

Reading local papers in Oz and NZ, though, I realised that we are not alone in our troubles. The same issues occupy people's minds - the health service, education, youth crime, alcohol abuse. Only drugs seem to be less of an issue than they are here.

Now there's a thought!

I've just been reading the local paper, seated by the pool with a drink, here in Coff's Harbour in NSW. One news item struck a chord with me, and I thought I'd share it with you.
The Attorney General is asking the powers that be to look at the common practice of "double dipping". This is where an accused pleads not guilty, maintains this plea up to a late stage whilst his lawyer negotiates with the prosecution for a lesser charge to be substituted (In our terms, a S39 instead of a S47, for instance).
Once the lesser charge is offered in court, accused duly pleads guilty "at the earliest opportunity", and gets his full guilty plea discount on the lesser charge.
It is being suggested that the reduction in charge should suffice, no further reduction in sentence being offered.
Put that way, it makes very good sense to me. Perhaps our own SGC could consider this argument for the UK.

It's the same the whole world over.............

A forty percent increase in the level of violent crime over the last twenty years. Prison overcrowding accompanied by an increase in the length of sentence. Fatal stabbings of young people on the street. Alcohol sales to underage youths.
Concerns covered in detail in this blog and Bystander's. And still I'm reading about it all in the daily press.
Except right now I'm in New Zealand. Wonder what I'll encounter next week when I reach Australia?