The suggestion by ACT Attorney-General Gary Humphries that there should be a minimum sentence for armed robbery may have some merit. However, the way he made the suggestion is regrettable. Mr Humphries made his statement after four robberies in Canberra in six days. It smacked of a knee-jerk reaction in a similar vein to statements made by NSW Premier Bob Carr every time there is a perceived, as distinct from real, rise in the rate of a particular crime.
The trouble with these sorts of responses is that they do little to prevent crime and nothing to catch criminals. They are financially cheap “”non-solutions”.
That said, Mr Humphries is entitled to express some exasperation at some of the sentencing practices for serious crime in the ACT Supreme Court. In a context in which the legislature has laid down a maximum penalty for armed robbery of 25 years’ imprisonment, the community would expect imprisonment of some kind even in the most mitigated circumstances. As it is a considerable number of people convicted of armed robbery get bonds.
But Mr Humphries is not really responding to instances of aggressive, money-seeking robbers getting told not to be naughty boys and put on a bond, as his call for toughness might suggest. It is more likely the robbers are pathetic but desperate drug addicts, and most politicians refuse to deal with that. Indeed, the get-tough prohibitionist, lock-em-up approach only makes the problem worse.
If Mr Humphries is to introduce minimum sentences it should be done after a debate about their application to all serious crime, and in particular their appropriateness to drug-driven crime. Minds should be exercised; not knees.