Our criminal justice system is designed to give those who commit crime their just desserts in a fair and predictable way.
The penalties are designed for punishment, rehabilitation, retribution and deterrence.
It must have been easy when things were back and white: if you did the crime, you served the time (or paid the price). Simple.
But now a perpetrator’s background matters. The circumstances of the crime matter. The victim and what they did matters. Sometimes an offender was also once a victim and that matters.
The criminal justice system is a great big tangle, but everyday people are still seeing it as a simple, linear, cause-and-effect model.
Baddies are not always in plain view. Goodies are rarely pure as the driven snow.
It’s complicated.
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Two very senior former judges talked at a public event held at USC this week, and their pitches laid this bare.
One was former Court of Appeal president and former chief of the Lawyer X royal commission Margaret McMurdo, who is heading the Women’s Safety and Justice Taskforce, which is looking at domestic and sexual violence victims’ experiences in the criminal justice system.
She recounted some real life horror stories to the assembled lawyers and police, students, scholars and support workers. She admitted solutions are not going to be quick, easy or linear.
In her narrative, two baddies emerged: the men who control and abuse women and — incredibly — police.
Problems as big as this one are rarely simple. Police are restricted in what they can do according to evidence and can only act on what they are presented with.
Casting a shadow of doubt over the lot risks corroding vital public confidence in this emerging, growing area of concern.
The other legal luminary to speak at USC was former judge and president of the Children’s Court of Queensland and current Queensland Sentencing Advisory Council president John Robertson.
He shared his insight into what he sees as a broken juvenile justice system, and in his narrative, the villains were not the child criminals, but the ill-informed politicians and members of the public who demonise the young rogues.
Both speakers identified the need for law reform, better education, early intervention and greater supports for victims as well as wrongdoers themselves.
But rarely does the public appetite extend to investing in bad eggs, and it is a rare politician who will risk their re-election by plumping for public spending on the lost or the lawless.
Victims and villains. Crime and punishment. The public is riveted by these.
And we in the cheap seats are so quick to judge. We feel free to spruik opinion on specific cases without knowing details. For example, how many people were quick to voice judgement when little Cleo Smith went missing, but are abashed about that now?
We must accept that in our complex society, monochrome systems and a clean delivery of law and order are long gone.
With life in full colour comes complexity and a requirement for understanding.
And when it comes to villains and victims, an understanding that rarely are there any absolute winners and losers.
Jane Stephens is a USC journalism lecturer, media commentator and writer. The views expressed are her own.
