Mandatory Sentencing celebrity statement Do you know anyone prominent to sign the statement opposing mandatory sentencing? This is a call for everyone to put a final effort into getting prominent people to sign the statement. The statement can also be found at http://www.greens.org.au/bobbrown The launch is this Friday and we need more famous people. Doctors, lawyers, academics, chefs, TV, film, sports etc. For those not already doing so, please make a couple of phone calls to see what you can come up with. Ben Mandatory Sentencing Mandatory sentencing is a blight on Australia. The death of a 15 year old Indigenous boy while he was serving a 28 day mandatory sentence for stealing less than $100 worth of stationery is a tragedy from which this nation must learn. Mandatory sentencing is discriminatory. In the Northern Territory Indigenous Australians are 6 times more likely to be locked up than other Australians and in Western Australia young black people are sixty times more likely imprisoned under mandatory sentencing. Mandatory Sentencing flies in the face of the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Black Deaths in Custody. Mandatory sentencing does not take into account the person's age, the facts of the current offence, the individual circumstances, consideration of an appropriate period of time or the application of judicial discretion. Mandatory sentencing restricts the court's capacity to ensure that the punishment is proportional to the seriousness of the offence and that rehabilitative options are considered. These mandatory sentencing laws are in clear contravention of Article 37(b) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Furthermore there are huge economic costs associated with large increases in prison and detention centre population. Mandatory sentencing has proved ineffective as a deterrent to criminal activity. As a first step we urge all federal Members and Senators to support Senator Brown's private member's bill to ban mandatory sentencing for young people in Australia. It is not a question of overriding State and Territory law. Rather it is the states and territories that overrode Australia's human rights obligations when they breached the United Nations conventions to which Australia is a signatory. Name. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Position. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Signature. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . For further information or to download this statement from the web visit www.greens.org/bobbrown or call Win Childs 02 95523599 or Ben Oquist 0419 704095 Please return this by fax to 02 96606554 or 02 62773185 Authorised by: Sydney Campaign Against Unfair Sentencing -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
