Submitted by Liberty Victoria on Tue, 15/11/2016 - 16:21
Teenagers don't belong in an adult jail, even when things get hard. Placing them with adult prisoners is exposing them to dangerous influences and the risk of abuse.
Liberty Victoria strongly opposes the Sentencing (Community Correction Order) and Other Acts Amendment Bill 2016 (Vic) (‘The Bill’). It is an unnecessary reform to the Community Correction Order (‘CCO’) regime that further entrenches mandatory sentencing in Victoria.
Liberty Victoria is very concerned about the Victorian Government’s announcement on proposed reforms to the Community Correction Order (‘CCO’) regime. The reforms should be strongly opposed.
The announcement reflects a fundamental misconception that by sentencing more persons to imprisonment Victorians will be made safer.
Liberty Victoria opposes the Bill which proposes an amendment to the Corrections Act 1986 (Vic) (the Act) by insertion of a new provision that would, in effect, render a prisoner serving a prison sentence for murder, or conspiracy to commit murder, ineligible for parole unless the Adult Parole Board (the Board) is satisfied that the prisoner has ‘cooperated satisfactorily in the investigation of the offence to identify the location, or last known location, of the remains of the victim of the offence’.
A reluctance to acknowledge the existence of racial profiling and a misunderstanding of how racism can be part of police practice underscores the need for better education in the Victoria Police, Liberty Victoria said today.
This follows a call by the Law Institute of Victoria for police to be required to have written consent before stopping and searching people deemed to be suspicious.
Both Liberty’s statement and the lawyers’ comments were in submissions to an inquiry after complaints by men with an African background in the Flemington area.
