http://digbig.com/4kxky
Dr David Solomon
"PARLIAMENTS are always changing criminal law, generally responding to community pressures. In the past few decades, the direction of change has been tougher sentences, the criminalisation of behaviour that previously went untouched, the introduction of mandatory sentences and reduction of judicial discretion to limit punishments. The trend seems to have been universal. Governments in Britain and elsewhere in Europe have also been unable to resist the law-and-order push and increased penalties for many offences. South Africa has introduced mandatory life imprisonment for aggravated murder and rape. In Australia, mandatory life imprisonment for murder has been abolished everywhere except in Queensland.
Almost everywhere, imprisonment rates are increasing, despite the fact that crime in most countries is either at a steady rate or even declining."
