Putting the truth into sentencing

This article was published in The Sydney Morning Herald 20 October 2010

Some love it, some hate it. Either way, sentencing is hard enough without unnecessary interference by politicians and the media, judges tell Geesche Jacobsen, Deborah Snow, Joel Gibson and Elisabeth Sexton.

Most judges and magistrates never forget the first person they sent to jail, says Geoff Dunlevy.

For the NSW country magistrate, it was a heavily pregnant woman who was guilty of recklessly wounding her partner.

''She was still in a relationship with the victim, who just wanted her to come home so they could have their child. There was just no way I could justify that, though, given the nature of the attack that he had suffered and the seriousness of the offence. I ended up setting a non-parole period that took into account the expected birth so that she could have her baby outside prison,'' Dunlevy says.

He has also struggled with sentencing children and juveniles, who may lack support at home and have been the victim of crime or disadvantage.