About the book
Between August 2020 and January 2023, independent
research into the root causes of crime in rural Australia was
undertaken by Sustainable Justice Australia. Hundreds
of people from all walks of life were consulted informally
through conversation and story. From these conversations,
a way forward emerged. An open model, the lychee model,
is presented as one way toward sustainable justice.
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The study examines how we think about crime, problems
within the law, and trauma in the community and lists the
hurdles we have to overcome to solve this highly complex
problem.
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The reader is invited to participate in several thought
experiments that use stories about animals, trees and
inanimate things in nature.
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Animals and lifeless things were brought before courts of
law on criminal charges in the distant and not-too-distant
past. In ancient Greece, waves of the sea were punished
with whip lashings after a storm had sunk a ship. Rocks
and trees that had killed people appeared before a court
and were trialled, convicted and stricken with hammers or
axes as punishments.
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As recent as 1916, circus elephant Mary was publicly
hanged from a railroad crane in Tennessee as a punishment
for murder. She had killed her handler after he had
prodded her on the left cheek. The coroner who examined
Mary after her death found that she had a severely infected
tooth in the spot where her minder had prodded her.
We no longer put waves, rocks, trees, or animals on trial
for reasons that are clear to all of us. We have come a
long way. We have become so much more enlightened, but
have we, really?
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This is the questions this book tries to answer. A just justice
system should be crystal clear about the origins of human
behaviour. Punishing people, especially young people,
because they deserve it makes as little sense as punishing a
wave, a rock, a tree, or an elephant.
www.clearmindpress.com
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