Drug traffickers getting lenient treatment
Geoff Wilkinson
March 21, 2008 12:00am
DRUG traffickers are getting soft treatment from judges, according to new figures.
The average non-parole term imposed last year in cases of large commercial drug trafficking -- which carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment -- was less than 4 1/2 years.
And a third of the non-commercial drug traffickers were not sent to jail at all.
The sentencing statistics also revealed that 22 per cent of those sentenced for cultivating a commercial quantity of narcotic plants, which carries a 25-year maximum, were also spared any jail time.
The Crime Victims Support Association and the Police Association branded the sentencing figures a disgrace.
The new Sentencing Advisory Council statistics follow last month's call by the Director of Public Prosecutions for tougher sentences.
DPP Jeremy Rapke, QC, told the Herald Sun that too many sentences were not reflecting available maximum sentences and not meeting the expectations of lawmakers or the community.
Trafficking in a large quantity of drugs carries a maximum penalty of $500,000 as well as life imprisonment.
Twenty offenders were sentenced during 2006-07 for trafficking in large commercial quantities.
The total of 20 sentenced offenders was only one more than the previous year, but a huge leap from two offenders in 2002-03, five in 2003-04 and only one in 2004-05.
All 20 were sentenced to a jail term, but the average non-parole period was only four years and five months.
The longest maximum sentence in Victoria in the past five years for large commercial drug trafficking was 16 years.
Two of the 26 people convicted of commercial drug trafficking in 2006-07 escaped with a wholly suspended sentence, although that was the lowest percentage spared jail in the past five years.
Only 57 per cent of offenders convicted of non-commercial drug trafficking in 2006-07 were given a custodial sentence.
