Sensible Sentencing Trust urges the Government to review sentencing discounts and sentence reductions for serious
violent crime, saying the overuse of discounts will not reduce the risk of repeat offending.
SST National spokesperson Jess McVicar said “A recent reduction in the sentence of Nomad gang member Randall Clinton
Waho because of his difficult childhood being ‘raised by the gang’ was an outrageous decision and one that will only put
the safety of the community at further risk. He is a repeat violent offender who has no concept of the harm he causes.”
Jess said rewarding such behaviour will only encourage offenders to use the excuse rather than attempting to reduce
harm.
“Our system needs to be reviewed for serious violent offending and instead of receiving discounts for such issues, the
offender should spend that discounted time in rehabilitation or counselling for the issues they claim led to their
offending.
The system is currently setting the offenders up to fail, but more importantly it is increasing the risk to victims and
the community. We can almost guarantee Waho is not going to stop his offending or leave the gang because he was rewarded
with a reduced sentence. Our system has become increasingly soft on serious violent offending and the rise in
victimisations proves this.”