Forgiving killers revs up danger
MICHAEL LAWS
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OPINION: You are the parent of two small children and out walking with them on a clear Christchurch day.
An illegally modified car, with its teen driver, accelerates from the lights in an apparent attempt to "drift". He starts to lose control and then hurtles into your group, scattering you from your children. When you pick yourself up, the shattered bodies of your children surround you. One is dead, one injured. Hell has found you.
The dead child – Nayan Woods – was just four. At his funeral, Nayan's dad told the grieving congregation that he would willingly change places with his deceased son. It is the lament of almost every parent who loses their child.
Incredibly, Nayan's killer – 18-year-old Ashley Austin – walked free from the Christchurch courts last week. His car and his driving were an accident waiting to happen. His hoonery killed an innocent child.
But Austin is a lucky, lucky man. The parents of his victim are a curious combination of fatalist and forgiver. Their support, at his sentencing, was the key factor in his release. Community service was all they sought – that would be atonement enough.
It may be that Austin has the conscience that was professed on the steps of the court after the sentencing. It is my cynical experience that all wrongdoers are remorseful once caught. And that their personal plight makes them the saddest, rather than the harm they might have done. Self pity produces more tears than selflessness.
Of course, Austin never intended to kill Nayan. We are not talking murder – we are talking irresponsible madness. But the consequences of his illegal modification, his immature driving, and his hoon outlook, were always likely to produce such an outcome.
Had the victim been any other four-year-old – had the parents been any other than the cheek-turning Woods – then the consequences would have been different. From the first instant, the family stated that they were not looking to blame anyone.
I would not have been so "compassionate" if Nayan had been my child. I doubt many Kiwi parents would be. There is a clear correlation between action and consequence, and my insistence would have been that the message be sent to any other Ashley Austin out there.
There will be those who argue that no good can come of such retribution. And yet to tolerate a justice system in which the victims have such sway over the sentencing of a criminal is inherently wrong.
It inevitably leads to different sentences, dependent upon the attitude of the aggrieved. And that if you strike the foolishly compassionate, then you have just drawn the good fortune card. Just don't strike the vengeful bastard.
Which is doubly ironic, because victim impact reports are so regularly disregarded by sentencing judges when their intent is revenge and punishment. Indeed, such sentiments are regularly dissuaded and edited – even though their visceral lament is as honest as it gets.
It may well be that the Woods find it easier to forgive because this is their best way of coping with the hole that Nayan's absence leaves in their lives. But that must always be a personal relationship between them and Austin. It should not affect the teen's sentencing, nor allow him to evade the proper consequences of his action.
Would sending Austin to jail have been a better outcome? Of course, regardless of the explicit remorse. The killing of a child – by accident or design – must always invoke the strongest sanction.
But the real problem is that New Zealand has a laissez faire attitude to killed kids. There seems an implicit assumption that those who have lost them have suffered enough – especially if they have contributed to the death. New Zealand has a scandalous proportion of accidental deaths involving children. From driving over toddlers in driveways, to loading the young ones into a leaky boat without life jackets, or another dad taking a short cut into a moving train. And few of the defacto killers ever find their way into a cell. Apparently, they have suffered enough.
Apparently, Ashley Austin has too. He will have Nayan's death on his conscience for the rest of his life. Well, gee, I should hope so. But that does not preclude proper punishment – his illegal actions were always likely to produce such an outcome. So was his intentional driving on suburban streets.
But he walks free – suffering the sanction only of a short curfew and a three-year driving ban.
Next week, next month, next year another teen hoon – possibly in Christchurch – will commit a similar act. And he will know that if he apes Ashley Austin – both on the road and in the court – he will be able to walk away as well. It is the worst message to send to such a fringe criminal community.
- © Fairfax NZ News
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mumof two #48 "So we should just forgive criminals their crimes because they have a hard luck story?"
If you think I have suggested that, then you did not read my posts. I am saying that increasing jail terms does nothing to create a safer society. In fact, there is evidence that the harsher the punishment, the more crime there is committed. There is plenty of good debate as to why this occurs. The most obvious perspective is that harsh penalties create greater divisions within a culture, subsequently less concern for each other and an increased tendency to engage in violence.
If we want to change peoples behaviour, we need to be smart about. Reactive punishment is folly.
@ Neil L #55
No Neil L, not sad at all. In fact all the emotions you imagine I have are way off base... sad, holding onto hate, seeking revenge, bitter and twisted... you leave me with no room for anything positive in my heart.
Rather than being emotional to the point of being deranged, I am being dispassionate. Have you ever seen the statue of "Justice"? She stands blindfolded holding a sword in one hand and scales on the other.
Why is she blindfolded? Simple, it represents objectivity - a cornerstone of real justice. Allowing victims a say in punishments is the antithesis of objectivity, it is subjectivity.
Ashley Austin killed a child. He drove an unsafe car in an unsafe manner in unsafe conditions. It's all about him. He must be judged against others who do the same thing with similarly tragic consequences.
What Austin did is unchanged whether he killed a child from a forgiving family or from a vengeful family. If you accept that Austin deserves a light sentence because the Woods are wonderful people, you must accept that if he killed a child from a less forgiving family he should go to jail for life.
The rest of your post is completely irrelevant except to underline the fact that, when it somes to Michael Laws, you are bitter and twisted and holding onto hate.
@McP: "I see you are up on your soap box again. " - And you aren't? The difference between my soapbox and yours is that mine seeks to understand, forgive and grow. Yours seeks to destroy, revenge, and hold on to hurt.
This takes me back to a comment I made where a victim wanted to essentially string the offender up. My comment then, and I will qualify my earlier comments here to remain consistent, is that victims should always have their voice in sentencing. However, they never have any sway over the sentence.
What the judge does is take into account the level of damage caused by the offending, the amount of harm caused to the victims, and what sort of sentence best serves society overall.
What is justice? Well it depends on how you want to use it. There is a growing trend towards restorative justice. Something that,to my mind, is far more enlightened than a punitive justice system. To make right - to restore what has been lost in some way. Restorative justice is about atonement, forgiveness and cleansing.
Restorative requires a sense of something beyond the self. Punitive is selfish, and about immediate gratification. Restorative justice requires work. Punitive justice involves shutting people away so you don't have to think about it any more.
I accept that in some cases - particularly where society as a whole is the wronged party - the individual desire to forgive must be subordinated to the needs of society to have deterrent messages sent. But these are too often seen as the only way to tackle the problems that give rise to the behaviour being punished. Again, it is the easy way out.
Real justice requires one primary question to be answered: What do you want, in the end, to come from Justice? Do you want bad behaviour to stop? Do you simply want blood? Do you want people who do wrong to understand the error of their ways and change?
It's bloody complicated. And as I have said before, requires society to ask some secondary questions of itself that it probably doesn't want answered.
McP - yes it is my soapbox because it is something I am passionate about. Primarily encouraging others to think about these things in ways other than the obvious and easy.
@Jake #45: thank you - well said. http://www.is.wayne.edu/stuarthenry/Effectiveness_of_Punishment.htm
I've been in the position where I was wronged and could not forgive the person who wronged me. It isn't an easy thing to do. However, the alternate isn't easy either. You can boil with rage at the injustice of what has happened for years and then decades afterwards. You can spend every waking moment thinking about "that awful day" and mulling over it time and time again. It was about seven or eight years after my awful day that I could finally go through an entire day without thinking about what happened to me. Even now, twenty five years later my awful day still haunts me. I don't have the sort of nature that allows me to forgive and move on. Sometimes I wish I did. These parents have done a difficult thing. It may seen strange, but they will be better for it. You wouldn't want to go through what I went, and am still going through.
I imagine Clayton Weatherston is at this very moment, lying on the bed in his cell, staring at the ceiling and mulling over how much he hates Sophie Elliot. He probably does it for hours every day and goes to sleep thinking about it and wakes up at night to think some more. He may well spend the rest of life like this. He's an extreme example, but he is what can happen when you don't forgive.
Good article - just goes to show that Michael Laws really has no idea.
Rex #35 "I totally agree that victims should not have a say in punishment."
How sad you are mate, the only people directly impacted on by this tragedy are the Woods and you say they have no right to have a say in the process. Rather Id say the people who have no right to a say in this are the hold onto hate and seek revenge so as to make themselves all the more bitter and twisted such as yourself.
Michael Laws is well known for twisting stories so as to see only the darker side of life, he is a sad sorry man, small in his thinking and smaller in his insights, I mean this is a dude that got all twisted up over the silent H being rightly put back into Whanganui claiming it was a major insult to all right thinking white NZ's, funnily enough he appeared to miss the silent H in his own name.
One of the reasons why this guy was spared a jail term, is due to the chastisement that he would receive from the NZ public. Now that the chastising has begun, it seems he deserves to be spared that as well. Oh, the benefits of being a victim.
If indeed this idiot has learned his lesson and is of no further threat to society, what purpose does the driving disqualification and the community service serve? To delay him becoming an experienced driver, maybe? Perhaps justice would have been better served by giving him a cash bonus so that he could legally complete the modifications to his car, thereby making the roads safer for us all.
@ #40 Rachel - good on you !
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whoever thinks that victims have the last say, or any real say at all, in the culprits sentencing, are seriously misguided! Laws you are a pillick, do us all a favour and crawl back under the rock you came from.