This last trip has seemed like the longest. I came down to Sydney as my brother was being sentenced for driving offences. After a lengthy speech by the Judge (who apparently cried as she was giving out the sentence, but I was a bit preoccupied with Lily to see) my brother has now been sentenced to 12 months. What an ordeal. I think the first few days of this is worse for family members than the actual prison sentence!!! Not knowing anyone that has gone to jail before, we were a bit lost as to what happened. My mum was devastated, as was the rest of my family. But what was worse, no one could tell us where he was, what the procedure was, or what had happened to him, until he was able to call us. "Luckily" he called us just over 24 hours later, but I think those 24 hours were the longest 24 hours for a very long while.
The worst part of this though, is that he was sentenced to gaol even though the judge didn't really want to. She was impressed how he had rehabilitated back in to society, getting a good full time job and turning his life around. She said it was out of her hands as politicians had said that people had to be sentenced a minimum of 2 years in prison, so that an example, that no one would know about, would be made. Now, I know to look on the other side of the coin too, he was endangering others, but if a lesson had been learnt, steps were taken to "fix" said behaviour, and they had turned their life around and "rehabilitated", what is the point of putting them in to gaol to "learn their lesson"? Surely this is a little counter-productive. I mean there are people that purposely hurt people that get less time than he has, people who use weapons, or beat their wives. Where is the "justice"?
Back to our trip, after hearing from my brother and learning where he was, we immediately set to organising to go and visit him. This in itself seemed an ordeal, and when we arrived to go in and visit we weren't allowed to take anything, including nappies and wipes - "they are all provided in there". We had to remove all jewellery, have our fingerprint scanned and images taken of our eyes (which were used to get through every door way). Getting in to the visiting centre, we were the first ones through, and Lily took to exploring. They had a little playground that she ran around, but took to the puddles and mud more than anything, which, when my brother emerged in his white "visits" jumpsuit, ended up all over him.
Of the very few days that my brother has been in there, I wonder how effective goal actually could be to change a person's behaviour. To make a person who seems to be attracted to unlawful activities, want to go "straight". I know it is boring being in there, from what I understand, and that they have to show respect to authority while in there, but is this enough to change how a person acts and thinks? Particularly if they didn't have a "good" life on the outside that could be ruined by their time "inside"?
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