Following January’s horrendous incident in the Bourke Street Mall and the fact the perpetrator was out on bail, it was inevitable a public outcry would demand a shake-up of the bail system.
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Measures announced this week form part of the government's response to a bail review which followed.
The shock of that single incident, seemingly out of the blue and with so many innocent victims, has the shattering feeling of randomness which instils a sense of public panic and hopelessness.
In a climate of increasing politicisation of this feeling, the state government has responded to the review by Supreme Court Justice Paul Coghlan, who made 37 recommendations following the incident.
State Attorney-General Martin Pakula says the reforms will include a presumption against bail for serious violent, sexual and driving offences.
Police will gain greater powers to hold people on remand and bail justices will not be considering the most serious cases. Bail will be refused for aggravated home invasion and aggravated carjacking,along with a presumption against bail for rape and armed robbery.
The point of all this, according to the Attorney-General, is magistrates and judges will have to place a higher priority on community safety when making bail decisions.
Naturally the opposition isn’t happy and has labelled the changes cosmetic. But perhaps an even greater compromise to public safety would be the glib assertion that changing a step in the justice system will make the wider criminal problem go away.
In four years Victoria's remand population grew from under 1000 to 2300 people. The courts are clogged and Corrections Victoria has struggled to find places for them and even deliver them to court – all to the frustration of magistrates and judges.
Nationally over the last five years, unsentenced prisoner numbers in Australia have increased 81 percent. By September 2016, the average number of full-time prisoners was 38,998, with almost a third unsentenced, a ratio that puts us in the league of the likes of Mexico, Brazil and Thailand. Moreover during this time the crime rate has increased.
Apart from the issue of recidivism, which increased prison populations foster, ignoring mental health and drug use will cost and compromise public safety more in the long run.