Home D for meth dealing

Stuff reports:

The Police Association says light sentences being handed down to serious methamphetamine offenders is making a mockery of laws, harming communities, and has police officers fuming. …

Analysis of 15 people charged and convicted following the operation showed that just five received prison sentences, two of whom were also being sentenced for other serious offending. Another only got a jail sentence because she couldn’t find a suitable address to serve home detention.

That means just two defendants were sent to prison for offending uncovered in the operation.

So only 2/15 were even give a jail sentence for a crime which has a maximum penalty of life imprisonment for supply and 10 years for assisting.

Two significant offenders, for example, had their starting points of seven years in jail reduced to 12 months home detention. Another had a starting point of five years in jail reduced to 10 months home detention.

To go from seven years to home detention means discounts of over 70%.

Cahill said judges appeared to be finding ways to reduce the sentences so they fit into the home detention range

Yes, it is very obvious.

“What really frustrates them is when an offender who offended from their home gets a sentence of home detention,” he said.

They get to work full-time on manufacturing more!

Cahill said the Government’s plan to impose a 40% limit on the amount by which a judge can reduce a sentence, except in situations where doing so would result in a “manifestly unjust” sentencing outcome, would go some way to addressing the issue.

This is a much needed change.