It's just so infuriating when you see criminals who are given sentences that in no way reflect the heinous nature of their crime. It would be lovely, well not lovely, but it would be admirable to have faith in a justice system, not simply have to endure a legal system. 

The Aussies know how to do it. There was a particularly ghastly pack rape of a young woman who had the misfortune to be walking home from a bus stop at the wrong place at the wrong time, and a gang of young men and one woman said, “Let's go and get ourselves a Sheila". And so this pack of homeless kids assaulted her, tortured her, gang raped her and murdered her. And they were sent to prison forever, until such time as they were physically incapacitated to no longer serve as a threat to the community or until they were dead.  

The UN came galloping in and said you simply can't do that, they were children when they did this. Yeah, no. They were man enough to cause that sort of pain, harm, and damage to an innocent woman, man enough to serve the crime. They can give somebody 36 years for rape and murder because even though they're a teenager, even though they've never done anything like this before, the severity of the crime is such that they pose a threat to society – damn right they do. 

But what do we do? Here we do it differently. We believe in the inherent goodness of all people and the redemptive power of incarceration, even when there is absolutely no basis to believe that. Around 56.5% of people with previous convictions are reconvicted within two years of release. Nearly 36% end up back in prison over the same period. Now, many people who get sent to prison are unfortunate, many people learn their lesson, but for those who commit the most serious crimes, they simply don't.  

This week we learned that Carla Cardno's rapist, torturer, and murderer is set to be released from prison and nobody is allowed to know what he looks like at all. Despite the fact a review ordered by the Parole Board in 2009 found he scored highly on the psychopathy checklist measure, he's a psychopath, and his characteristics pointed to the likelihood of serious violent and sexual recidivism. That was in 2009. They said after meeting him in 2014 it was worrying that he acknowledged he had enjoyed the event and the circumstances of his crime and the control he could exercise on the child during his dreadful offending.  

And so now apparently, he's cured. He's cured of being that sick, cruel deviant that he confessed himself to be and the Parole Board now believes he's only of average risk of offending. Oh cool. Average. Brilliant. How can you go from being that sick, that wrongly wired, to cured? You can't. At least I suppose we can run him through AI and see what he looks like now I guess, have a fair idea. 

And I guess at least we know what George Starling looks like. He's a Christchurch rapist who drugged two women with sedative laced vodka. These young women were flatmates, they returned back to their flat from a party to find Starling was already at their house, somebody else had invited him round. He offered them a drink. They thought they were having a drink of vodka. When they began suffering the effects of the drugged vodka, they took themselves off to bed. He entered first one room then the other and raped both women over the course of the night. Five months later he raped a third woman. He was found guilty of the rapes in two separate trials. In the first case he was sentenced to five years, served two. In the second he was sentenced to six years, served less than two.  

Why would you bother going through a court case for that as a woman? I have the utmost respect for the women who went to the Police, who saw that he was charged and made accountable for what he'd done to them, presumably doing so hoping that by their courage they'd be able to prevent him doing it again. But the sentencing just bears no relation to what he did to them. Apparently, he's no longer a risk to the community because he understands he must get consent. Yeah. Drugging women with sedative laced vodka so he can rape them, George, does not count as consent. Shock you and call you confused, but there you go. How could you be confused about consent when it comes to that? Snaps for you George, personal growth. That's right, drugging women so you can rape them isn't consent.  

How can we have faith in a system? I mean this is just two – you could probably pull two stories from the paper as well. You could probably pull a couple of stories if you just Googled “rapist sentenced New Zealand", you would find farcical, farcical sentences given. At least I suppose he was sent to prison. We've had drunk drivers who've killed people who haven't been sent to prison. How can we have faith in a system where the punishment for serious crimes is so insignificant, so inconsistent with the severity of the crime and the damage that they have caused?