A headline in today's paper will please many people. A criminal who bashed a female police officer with a brick was given a twenty-one year prison sentence. The problem is - that is not what will be served !
The offender was a drug addict and he callously bashed the officer walking through King's Cross on her way to work. He dragged her unconscious body into a park - and left her for dead. Her injuries were so severe that part of her skull had to be removed and she was put into an induced coma. She still faces complications that prevent her from returning to work.
Twenty-one years sounds like a severe sentence - until you learn that it contains a non parole element of just fifteen years and nine months, and that this will commence from the time of arrest.
Add to that the usual deductions for things such as supposed " good behaviour " - and the actual time served will most likely be just eleven and a half years.
It costs a lot of money to keep a person in prison and there is a very real incentive for governments to regularly commute sentences to keep costs down, but when a criminal - who was on parole for other crimes at the time of this offence - leaves a serving police officer with permanent injuries - severity is warranted.
We could well do without the spin to convince us that justice is being served. The actual time behind bars is really what it is all about !
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