That Criminals Should Receive Harsher Penalties (Australia)

When eastern suburbs drug dealer Richard Buttrose was sentenced to serve at least 16 years in prison, for possession of over 10 million dollars worth of cocaine it sparked debate, was his sentence too tough, even though he had given valuable information to police or was it not tough enough, given that the maximum sentence for his crime was life imprisonment. In my opinion it is always better to punish too tough than to let people get away with awful crimes.

Good afternoon teachers and students today I will talk to you about why I think criminals should receive harsher and stricter penalties for their crimes. Too often we hear stories of another terrible murder, rape or drug offence that received too little or no punishment at all. The sentencing figures found on the Australian institute of criminology website are just as surprising as they are disturbing. In 2010, the most recent statistics available, only two out of thousands of people convicted of robbery were given the maximum sentence set by law, the number for sexual offences were just one per cent and out of the 10,000 criminals found guilty of burglary in 2010, not a single one received the maximum punishment for their crime.

Many of you here may not have a clear understanding of how the Australian justice system works, as it is very complex and confusing, but all you really want to know is that when people commit a crime of any degree, they will get punished accordingly.

There are many purposes for imposing a sentence, six main ones that have been identified are:

* Punishment: which usually means imposing a sentence that inflicts pain or loss to the offender e.g.; life in prison

* Rehabilitation: means imposing a sentence that will help to change the future behaviour of the offender e.g.; drug rehab program

* Deterrence: discouraging offenders from committing more crimes

* Community protection: means protecting the community from the offender and the particular crime in general....