Approaches to crime that rely on punitive methods have proved to be ineffective and counter-productive. Rehabilitation programmes not only prevent crime, but are cost-effective and practical.
Unless most prisoners are given a realistic prospect of rehabilitation, how much good can prison really do?
Shutterstock/sakhorn
Sentencing policy is a mixed bag of approaches: punishment, deterrence, protection and rehabilitation. The system will remain costly and ineffective until punitive instincts give way to a more rational approach.
Two Australians will soon be killed at a prison on the Indonesian island of Nusakambangan – for no deterrent effect.
AAP/Darma Semito
Joko Widodo argues that Indonesia needs to execute drug offenders like Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran to deter others, but he can produce no evidence to support this claim.
Discipline is necessary for children, but we need to teach them to self-discipline, not bribe them to be good.
Emiliano
Discipline is necessary for children, but we need to teach them to self-discipline, not bribe them to be good.
Individual circumstances, including evidence of remorse and rehabilitation over the past decade, don’t matter in the cases of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran.
EPA/Made Nagi
The national review of teacher education, released last week, emphasised that teaching graduates need to enter the classroom with practical skills for handling a classroom, and not just knowledge of the…
Australians don’t like the death penalty – we just don’t want the discomfort of having to care about the people it’s applied to.
EPA/Made Nagi
Barring some sort of last-minute miracle, two relatively young Australian men, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, are going to be killed by the Indonesian state. They will not be the first to die this way…
Justice and forgiveness can co-exist so that one may encourage the other.
Steve Calcott/Flickr
One of the inevitable things in life is that someone will do or say something to upset and hurt us. While forgiveness is a good way to overcome such hurts, we also don’t want people to get away with what…
Imagine if you woke up one day and found yourself unexpectedly surrounded by presents and then a few days later you woke up to find chocolate eggs all over your room. Would you rejoice in your good fortune…
Director, Asian Law Centre, Comparative Legal Studies Program; Associate Director, Vietnam; Director of Studies, Asian Law, The University of Melbourne