Under new laws, pedophiles in Australia will be sentenced to much harsher punishments including mandatory sentencing.
The bill not only creates far harsher sentencing laws, it also limits bail for repeat offenders and imposes laws that will make it easier to tackle online abuse and grooming. The Australian Attorney General, Christian Porter, has said that many convicted child sex offenders have been let off with light sentencing and in many cases haven’t even spent a day behind bars. He said:
“Sexual crimes against children destroy lives. It simply beggars belief that nearly a third of all child sex offenders who were sentenced last year were not required to spend a single day behind bars despite the devastating and life-long impacts that their crimes have on their young victims and their families.”
In 2018, the cases of child exploitation in Australia doubled from around 9,000 to 18,000.
In 2019, it is believed that as many as one in three convicted sex offenders in Australia did not go to prison and those that were sent down on average received an 18-month sentence.
Under the new laws all sex offenders will receive a mandatory sentence of between one and four years, while the most serious offenders will receive a mandatory five to seven years, with the possibility of a life sentence being handed down. It is hoped that this will not only deter sex offenders but keep them off the streets where they can’t commit more harm to society.
Peter Dutton, the home affairs minister, stated to parliament:
“The Australian Federal Police working with AUSTRAC and others is detecting more and more people who are depraved, who are online and who deserve to be caught and will be punished … Sentences need to reflect community expectations and act as a significant deterrent to others, which is why these sorts of despicable crimes must result in significant penalties, not simply a slap on the wrist which is often the case.”
The moves have been widely supported by the Australian public and by opposition political parties. While the Australian Labor Party did forward concerns concerning minimum sentencing the party did not seek to stop the bill being passed.
Mandatory sentencing, while unusual in Commonwealth countries such as Australia, are commonplace in the United States and other countries. While some argue they make all citizens aware of the punishments they will receive for committing certain crimes others believe they do not
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