FIGHT FOR JUSTICE

If it is prison in Tasmania that is failing, then it could be the justice system first which may need reform (Talking Point, May 8). Most laws are old and from the British heritage and colonial times.

To add new words to an old law and bring it up to date, may not be enough.

Alcohol is Australia’s culture. Combine this with drugs and underlying mental health problems, it will fill prisons in no time and too often with unintended harm to others.

A changing lifestyle has made 18-year-olds into adults, changed work and job environments, created religion, sex and race discrimination commissions, while freedom of speech, which always has been, is now questioned.

Technology in health and education has advanced and with social electronic media encouraging people who think they ought to be offended to contemplate suing others.

Uncertainty is felt right, left and centre. Police and policing try their best to adjust to ever-increasing new and problematic issues.

What alternative do they have but putting more people in front of courts and into prison? Redirecting money to prevention and as Professor White writes, rehabilitation programs, are much cheaper in the long run.

It would help lessen trauma for affected families and keep them productive. If there is a will there is a way and if wanted, overfilled prisons could become the past, not the future, for Tasmania.

H. Stevenson

Lauderdale