No Grand Theft Auto In Prison?

Thanks to Frictionless Insight for pointing to an Australian article discussing a judge's suggestion that Grand Theft Auto-style games not be available in prison. According to the report, "Bradley Scott McConkey... led police on a 200km car chase at speeds of up to 180 kilometres per hour, as well as stealing cars at knifepoint and committing armed robbery on two businesses", and additionally, "...a psychologist's report said McConkey had played Playstation's Grand Theft Auto during a previous jail term." Due to the similarity of the games and the crime, the judge suggested "...the appropriateness of Grand Theft Auto-style games in a prison environment was questionable", since it "provides opportunities for rehearsing their destructive activities."

Comments

I play quake to relieve my anger and kill people.

[seann]

works good for anger management.

Six years, eight months?

[Babbster]

McConkey pleaded guilty in August to seven charges including assault with intent to rob, aggravated armed robbery and stealing a car...He was sentenced to a total of six years and eight months in jail.

Is anyone else more concerned that Australia can't give a tougher sentence to people who commit violent crimes (armed robbery)? Admittedly, I don't know much about the Australian justice system. Do they actually put people away for the entirety of their sentence? If so then the sentence isn't TOO bad (seems like it could still be longer), but in America the above sentence would end up being under three years if the prisoner met enough parole conditions...

Re:Six years, eight months?

[jquirke]

Australian sentences generally seem to be fairly short, from what I've seen (in the state of Victoria).

For example, it seems the public is content with a violent murderer going away for 15-20 years, whereas in the US you'd probably want life, or death.

I was actually surprised at this guy for getting almost 7 years - although this is another state (WA) so I'm not too familiar with their sentencing - it will obviously differ state to state as it does in the US.

Re:Six years, eight months?

[@madeus]

Australian sentencing seems to be quite leniant by US standards. It seems to me to be very similar to the UK. In the UK (and I suspect in Australia too) there is much pressure on over crowed prisions.

Interestingly enough, this was a problem in the US when GWB came to power, so, duh, he though, we need to build a lot more prisions (a very GWB solution).

I'm not a fan of the US Justice System (it /still/ exececutes people for a start, which is entirely despicable in my book, and I find it US police are excessively authoritarian, though I do like the idea of elected high ranking police officals) but quite frankly building more prison space was a simple, logical idea. It worked too! - Crime was brought down. He was 100% spot on in building more prisons.

It's not because prison re-habilitates people that 'more prisons' work (most people go on to reoffend), and it's not that it's a deterrent (statistically, term lengths have very little impact because criminals don't expect to get caught). it's just that so crime is commited by the same group of poeple. If you keep them (a tiny minority) locked up, then they are not going around commiting crimes, so the crime rate falls. It's really that simple.

Of course in the long term you need improved education and social services too, so you can socially engineer the populace so they are less included to mug/rape/murder each other, but you need to 'keep the loonies of the grass' in the mean time - you can't have them running around in the street commiting drive bys and GTA.

IMO, this is what we need to do in the UK, more prisions and less 'lighter sentences beacause the prisons are overcrowed!'. We also badly need a 3 strikes and your out rule IMO. I am fed up with serial car jackers, burgalers and murders who get light sentences (out after 8 years for rape and murder, for example), only to re-offend. I mean, FFS, if the have been arrested for burglary/assault/car theft 10 times already what the fuck are they doing out of jail already?

Take the case of Tony Martin, who was sentanced to jail for life for shooting dead a burglar on his own land (there were two burglars who had come to steal from him, Tony Martin was alone in a remote house in the country). Tony Martin's sentance was reduced to 5 years on appeal (though he was refused early release), but most interesting point about the whole affair was:

The burgler who died had already been in court 28 times for crimes including theft, fraud, offences against property and public disorder. His accomplice was even worse and had 34 criminal convictions for the same types of offences!

There is no way either of these two should have been walking around the streets, it's just incompotence on the part of our justice system. The judges responsible *should* have been named and shamed and forced to resign. They are clearly not fit to serve. In this respect, the US legal system certainly works better than ours because sentancing is harsher in cases like this.

Oh, and get this - the wounded buglar (33 year old Brendon Fearon) is suing Tony Martin for 'loss of earnings', despite currently being in jail on an 18 month sentance for dealing heroin. The fact that he even has a chance of winning should disturb us all...

The funny thing is, the whole business of judges handing down light sentences so as not to further over crowd prisions really pisses the police in the UK off as well, they know that if they arrest someone and hand the case over to the CPS (Criminal Prosecution Service) to handle, they are easily back on the streets and commit crimes again because the judge will invariably go lightly on them and the whole exercise will just end up being a complete waste of police and CPS time as well of course of money.

GTA in Aussieland?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't the original GTA completely banned in Australia? I thought they kept up the trend to present-day too. Why would the prisoner even have access to it?

Re:Beggars (OT)

[isorox]

I live in Walthamstow, work in Shepherd's Bush, and I know what you mean. Its not confined to London though, Exeter's just the same, albeit on a smaller scale, Manchesters pretty much the same scale. Normally I ignore beggars - but this guy looked like he should have been in hospital, definatly didnt have the heart or energy to kick up a fuss. I didnt think to ask him why he wasnt getting help as I'd had a long day and it was 11PM.

This was down on the station platform though, Any idea why LUL staff hadnt moved him on?

I remember a time I was 2p short for a train ticket home at Manc. Oxford road once, couldnt find anything on the floor, but a station worker gave me the dosh.

As for 1000 per month for a 1 bedroom flat, tell me about it. I'm paying 410 a month for a 4m*4m room in a shared house (albeit with all utilities, sky, cable internet, councili tax etc paid for). Another 90pm for tube and nearly 30% tax and theres not much left.

I remember a story an old teacher once told me. He met a lad that had left school a few years earlier, joined the army. He had a drinking problem, got discharged, and ended up begging on the streets of manchester. Anyway, the teacher took him for a good meal and found out his life story. After the meal they parted ways, but the lad dropped dead a few hundered yards up the road. The only person at the funeral was my teacher.

I'm not laying blame on anyone, but somewhere something went wrong wtih this man. Sure he had plenty of chacnes to turn himself round, but you have to wonder why people dont. In many cases beggars are on better "wages" then me - even before taxes, but there are a few genuine cases there. Why arent they in hostels? Why arent they in glaswegian flats? Why are they rooting through bins outside macdonalds - not just in London but in Exeter? Solve the 10% of cases that are genuine, slap major dis-incentives on the rest, and hopefully begging will evaporate.