DANGEROUS PERSONS: TO BE JAILED FOR WHAT THEY ARE, OR WHAT THEY MAY DO, NOT FOR WHAT THEY HAVE DONE (FROM SERIOUS VIOLENT OFFENDERS: SENTENCING, PSYCHIATRY, AND LAW REFORM, 1991, P 39-45, SALLY-ANNE GERULL AND WILLIAM LUCAS, EDS. - SEE NCJ-147734)

• NCJ Number: 147738
• Author(s): R Merkel
• Date Published: 1993
• Length: 7 pages
• Sale Source: Criminal Justice Press/Willow Tree Press
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: Australia

Annotation

In Victoria, Australia, the case of Garry David prompted the Parliament to pass the Community Protection Act (1990) to provide the courts a means of preventively detaining a specific offender deemed to be extremely dangerous and a threat to the community.

Abstract

This author argues that there is a fundamental flaw in a system that jails dangerous persons past the time set for their release. A violent person entering the prison system is bound to become even more violent inside unless the state takes steps to treat the offender and help him readjust into society. The Act demonstrates the failing of the system to do this; it was only a short-term fix to the unsolved problem of community protection. It dispensed with medical privilege, eliminated the rules of evidence, and allowed the case to be decided based on probabilities. The solution to reducing the risk posed by dangerous individuals to a society is to begin rehabilitation within the prison system from the beginning of an offender's sentence and through the period of parole. 1 reference