How often do we read the newspaper or watch the nightly news and hear about a vicious crime that has taken place only for the offender to get off quite lightly ?
It frustrates me when l hear of someone who has been found guilty of murder, rape, drug trafficking or some other very serious crime who ends up getting a sentence of anywhere between 2 and 14 years.
As far as murder is concerned, this is really a “no brainer” when you commit a murder you have robbed someone of their life and you have also robbed all of their family and friends of someone they knew, loved and enjoyed spending time with and around. So as far as l am concerned, when you are found guilty of murder you ought to “Never Be Released From Prison”
Ok l understand that our justice system likes to give people reason to show remorse and an option of rehabilitation, but surely when you intentionally take someones life you do not deserve a second chance…….. The victim is not going to be given a second chance so why should the perpetrator?
As for rape and serious sexual assault, once again the victim will be forced to live with that experience for the remainder of their life and they will most likely lead a less enjoyable life as a result of the sexual assault, so once again why should anyone who intentionally rapes or commits a serious sexual assault be allowed to serve any less than 15 years in prison ? Maybe it should be more than 15 years, but as far as l am concerned it should not be a day under 15 years.
Drug Trafficking……. well this is one of my pet hates. The people who manufacture and traffic drugs are preying on the vulnerability of people in general and they are ultimately profiting from the misery and destruction they cause as a direct result of manufacturing, supplying and pushing these drugs.
We as a nation are all victims of the effects of drugs. Due to people’s dependency on a drug once hooked these addicts will do just about anything to get the money together to buy yet another hit. Often this money is raised by robbing, burglarising, defrauding and/or stealing from innocent people within our community. So these drug traffickers may be driving around in lash cars and be wearing thick gold chains and what ever other luxuries they may have, but when they are caught they ought to be dealt with in such a harsh fashion that they pay the price for what the did do and what they will continue to do to our community for many years to come.
I understand that we can not get “too tough” on the young kids who are just plain and simply “stupid” enough to pickup and deliver small quantities to their friends, but we do need to be a little tougher on these fools and ultimately we need to show “No Mercy” to the “king Pins” and the “Big Boys”. When a raid is carried out and large quantities of drugs are found the guilty parties must be locked up for no less than 20 years and even longer if possible.
We need to change the sentencing act and we need to have some very strict guidelines for judges who are handing down these sentences so that we do not end up with some criminals getting off lightly when they really ought not be
We need to gain control of our streets and take the steps to ensure that people who do inflict grief, pain, fear etc onto our community are dealt with in a way that sees them adequately punished, but also send a message to everyone that serious crimes will not be tolerated and the option of a second chance is very limited when you do commit a serious crime.
Getting tougher on serious crime will serve a couple of purposes, one it will see the offender paying a significant penalty for his or her actions and it will also send a strong warning that the community is getting very tough on serious crime. The other thing it will do is it will give the victims and the family of victims some sense of justice as the victim will be serving a very long time behind bars.