i am going to reorganise the chronology of my response relative to what you stated because it is important to lay foreground before any assertion of substance is constructed. A valid debate is one where subjective assertions are contextualised through ascertaining their credence based on qualified background. Needless to say, since we are a collection of school and university students, this does not need to be unnecessarily extended to this debate, only where applicable. In this applicable sense, when an individual tutors legal studies, it brings one to believe that they are, more than likely, and hopefully, knowledgeable of the legal studies syllabus. As i said, justice is a subjective term individualised to perception. In the notion of amalgamating the competing interests of the offender, victim and society, the victim (expressed through the family) is objectively clear about justice, that is, they believe the offender should have gotten more than his sentence of five years and two months (non-parole period). As megalomaniac as we may be, we cannot authoritatively impose our own perceptions of what the victim feels is justice. It is objective. It is clear. As i hope you are aware, pursuant to s.21a of the crimes (sentencing procedure) act 1999 expresses the requirement to consider mitigating and aggravating circumstances proportionately, which has, beyond dispute, not been done. I say 'beyond dispute' because the family is obviously not satisfied, which by default, constitutes an imbalanced consideration of the competing rights. In this sense of imbalance, it is necessary to exemplify your background knowledge of legal studies, and why you have not responded accordingly is almost inconceivable considering that the 'balance' argument is one of complete objectivity, not subjectivity. It is not a matter of opinion, when the victims interest is so blatantly ignored and rehabilitation is given unnecessary centrality.
As crobat underpinned, an effective balance between the offender, victim and society needs to be reflected in the sentencing of an individual. We can look at australia where someone can kill and stay in prison for just over a period of five years, and we can look at america where juveniles are being direct filed to the adult court and serving life in prison without the possibility of parole, for a crime they did not commit, due to the felony murder statute. Either extremity is problematic. There has been an argument circling regarding five years being a very long time. I mean, sure, five years ago i was twelve. If i thus apply that assertion subjectively, i can only agree that five years is a long time. However, as i said before, an assertion requires contextualisation to ascertain its validity. Loveridge is an adult. He is past the developmental age. Analogous to how it is societally acceptable for marriage to occur with a ten year age discrepancy, only when the couple are in ages of maturity, but not at ten and twenty. We had a ticking time bomb walking the streets injuring several people and killing one, all in a single night. It is possible that loveridge will be rehabilitated in five years, but it's not probable, and that it is a critical distinction. There is a quantum leap between possibility and probability. It is possible that a meteorite will come over this earth and kill us all in five seconds, but it is not probable. Thus, a plausible, and only conceivable way to increase the probability of his rehabilitation is to increase the severity (time) of his sentence. That will bring us to an additional few years, and in amalgamating that increase, and being statutorily compliant to keep a balance, the sentence must additionally be increased on the basis of the victim's rights. In considering this totality, it is only appropriate to significantly increase the time of loveridge's sentence, and eliminate this injustice of largely and with centrality, only considering rehabilitation in his initial sentence.