A National e-Assessment Centre (NeAC) and a network of Regional e-Assessment Centres will be set up to implement the Faceless Assessment Scheme of the Income Tax Department, launched nation-wide by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi on 13^th August, 2020. The regional assessment network would comprise assessment units, verification units, technical units and review units. The system allows for dynamic jurisdiction, team-based working, and functional specialization and does away with human interface altogether. This was informed by the Principal Chief Commissioner of Income Tax, Mumbai, Shri Patanjali Jha, during a webinar on “Faceless Assessment Scheme and Virtual Court Hearings”, conducted by KPMG India.

Making a comparison between the faceless assessment system and the current system it replaces, the Principal Chief Commissioner explained how the new system is one designed for the 21^st century. There is no discretion in selection of assessment cases, while earlier, case selection used to happen manually. In place of single territorial jurisdiction, we now have automated random allocation of cases. While notices used to be issued both manually and on the system, issue of notices will now be done through a central mechanism (by NeAC) in electronic mode. There shall be no physical meetings between taxpayers and officers. Wide discretion and subjective assessment are being replaced by team-based assessment and a system wherein draft order is issued in one city, review is done in another city and finalization is done in yet another city. This thereby leads to an objective, fair and just assessment order, said the Principal Chief Commissioner.

Along with Pr. CCIT, Mumbai, Chief Commissioner of Income-Tax (ReAC) Mumbai, Smt. Lekha Kumar and Principal Commissioner of Income-Tax (ReAC), Mumbai, Smt. Ratna Dasgupta also addressed the participants and responded to their queries.

The Webinar was organized to promote the awareness amongst the stakeholders about the new faceless assessment scheme and had an overwhelming participation of more than 1,000 participants. The department intends to hold more such outreach programmes in coming days to educate the tax payers about the new faceless assessment scheme.

Faceless Assessment Scheme was rolled out in the Income Tax Department as a pilot project in September, 2019. Initially, a limited number of cases were picked up for faceless assessment which was being done at eight centres in the country. The Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi announced the extension of the scheme to the entire department on 13^th August 2020. The scheme is also being extended to the first appellate authority i.e. Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals) from 25^th September, 2020.

The concluding part of ‘RAAGOTSAV…Celebration of Monsoon’, an online festival of rare Films Division documentaries on Indian classical music has started streaming on FD Website and You Tube channel from today. Dedicated to the memory of Pt Jasraj, the doyen of Hindustani Music who departed on 17th August, 2020, and also to other maestros of vocal tradition of Indian classical music – both Hindustani and Carnatic schools, this online festival will continue till 28th Aug, 2020. It offers a veritable musical journey through the life and works of prominent masters of famous gharanas and traditions of Indian Classical music – their performing styles and profound impact and valuable contribution to the vocal classical music. The package also includes well-researched documentaries on the nuances of classical music and its distinct styles and traditions.

Today, the beginning of ‘RAAGOTSAV-II’ happened with ‘Sangeet Martand – Pt. Jasraj’(50 min./2000/Madhura Jasraj). Among the prominent vocalists of Mewati gharana and follower of egalitarian philosophy, Pt Jasraj introduced a perfect blend of devotional music with traditional classical style. His total submission to God and Music and his thought process behind introducing new format of jugalbandi, has been potrayed in the biopic, Jasrangi which has been the first on the slot today.

Without mentioning Khayal gayaki, recognition of classical music will be incomplete. The documentary ‘Khayal’ (78 min./1988/Usha Deshpande) helps us to understand the characteristics of various gharanas or schools such as the Jaipur, Gwalior, Mewati and Kirana gharana and contributions made by their leading exponents to Khayal Gayaki.

Film ‘Amir Khan'(18 min./1970/SNS Sastri) portrays the life and works of Ustad Amir Khan, founder of the Indore Gharana, known for his intellectual approach to music and one of the greatly admired vocalists of his times who could bring out all the emotive aspects of the raagas.

‘M S Subbulakshmi’(117 min./2000/Rajgopal V) is a comprehensive biopic on Bharat Ratna, M S Subbulakshmi and depicts her illustrious journey and immense contribution to the ancient and glorious tradition of Carnatic music, especially her bhajans with extra ordinary bhakti bhavana that moved great personalities including Mahatma Gandhi to tears.

Second day (tomorrow) of the musical feast will begin with a documentary on Bharat Ratna Pt. Bhimsen Joshi, great Hindustani exponent of the Kirana gharana and an expert in khayal gayaki. ‘Pt. Bhimsen Joshi’ (74 min./1992/Gulzar) is a biographical film that takes us to the maestro’s enthralling concerts, analyses his passion for different ragas and attempts to uncover the man behind the music icon.

Known as the ‘Pitamaha’ (the grand sire) of modern Carnatic Music, a veteran Carnatic musician and teacher, Semmangudi Sreenivasa Iyer was a dedicated artist. ‘Semmangudi Sreenivasa Iyer’ (20 min./2000/Sivan) is a brief biopic on artist’s extraordinary skill of producing soulful music in a traditional temperament.

Documentry ‘Girija Devi’ (60 min./1997/ Bijoy Chatterjee) peeps into the life and works of an eminent classical singer, an exponent of the Seniya and Banaras Gharanas. She was credited with elevating the profile of Thumri Gayaki and her repertoire included the semi-classical genres like kajri, chaiti, hori and many more.

Another exponent of Kirana Gharana and known for her deep and powerful voice, Gangubai Hangal was a disciple of great maestro Sawai Gandharwa. This film ‘Gangubai Hangal’ (31 min./1985/Vijaya Mulay) includes interview with her and also highlights her passion of khayal singing and philosophy behind it.

‘Dhrupad’(68 min./1982/Mani Kaul) as the name suggests is on ‘Dhrupad Raag’. Though it is improvised in its existing form, roots of Dhrupad can be traced back to a thousand years of living traditions. This film helps us to understand the nuances as well as reasons for the popularity of Dhrupad among music lovers.

The  world  of  classical  music  has  a  special  affection  for  Tarana  bandish.  Through   ‘Tarana’      (26 min./1995/Rajat Kapoor), one gets to know the characteristics of this popular bandish and a unique style that employs mnemonic syllables like ‘dar-dar or ‘dir-dir’ in its compositions. ‘Khayalnuma’ is a variant of the Tarana that is also presented in this film.

Known for breaking all conventional modes of biographical or documentary film making, ‘Siddheswari’ (92 min./1989/Mani Kaul) is a work of experimentation, dedicated to the life and musical journey of legendary Hindustani singer, Siddheswari Devi. This film underlines her invaluable contribution to the world of light classical music.

‘Hans Akela’ (81 min./2006/Jabbar Patel) is the search of a grandson into his grandfather’s life and works. Bhuvanesh Komkali takes us back for a retrospective look into his grandfather, Kumar Gandarva’s probe of musical roots. His search of Kumar Gandharva is not just as a singing legend but as a musicologist too.

‘The Melody Man –Dr. Balamurali Krishna’ (28min./1999/Gul Bahar Singh) takes a short yet incisive trip into the life and works of one of the great exponents of Carnatic Music – Dr. Balamurali Krishna, a vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, playback singer, composer and character actor. His constant quest for new frontiers and his boundless creativity are perfectly portrayed through the documentary.

Raagotsav attempts to not only showcase the best classical music talents India has produced over centuries but also to rekindle and re-invent the spirit of pure music for ‘rasikas’ in India and across the globe. The festival also aims at introducing the younger generation of music lovers to the treasure trove of great traditions of music India is known for, from North to South and East to West. Please visit www.filmsdivision.org and click @ “Documentary of the Week” or follow FD YouTube Channel, https://www.youtube.com/user/FilmsDivision to enjoy the veritable music feast.

Metro is ready to open in September under Unlock-4. But it can create some problems for the commuters as many rules and regulations have been imposed given Covid-19 situation. Not everyone will be given entry into the metro station. The number of entries will depend on the number of people inside the station at that moment. To avoid crowds at interchange stations it has been decided that only 50% of the entry and exit gates will be opened. The station controller will have the responsibility to control the crowd present at the platform. The station controller will co-ordinate along with CISF team present at the entry will decide whether or not to close the entry gates in case of many people arriving at the same time. The metro administration has located around 13 metro stations like Kashmiri gate, Huda City Centre, Rajiv chowk, Mandi House where there is possibility of huge crowds. Currently in the interchange stations will only use one route to go from one line to another. For this metro is preparing different routes.

Along with these a Metro will wait for a longer duration at each metro station. This will result in longer time to reach one’s destination. Generally a Metro stops for 15 to 20 seconds at Metro station but now it well wait for 40 to 50 seconds. Also each coach will be allowed to carry only 20 passengers at a time.

Queensland’s rate of imprisonment has recently undergone a reversal,
following several years of what appeared to be a declining trend. Contrary
to other states and territories, from 2002 to 2012 the rate of imprisonment
in Queensland from 168 to 159 prisoners per 100,000 adults. In 2013 this
trend reversed and by 2014 the rate had reached a 21% increase over the
2002 figure.
In addition, over this period Queensland Corrective Services (QCS) has
increasingly accommodated prisoners in high-security rather than
low-security prisons. In 2013, was at 93% compared to 63% in low-security
facilities.

The increase in prisoner numbers and greater use of high-security facilities
might seem to indicate that Queensland has recently become more
punitive, with tougher and longer sentences. However, evidence suggests at
least part of the rise in prison numbers may be due to the greater
proportion of offenders who return to prison either following or during a
period of supervision in the community.
For several years, Queensland has led other states and territories in these
kinds of returns to prison. For example, the showed that the state’s rate of
returns to prisons was 34.1% compared to the Australian average 24.8%.
Queensland’s rate of return was nearly nine percentage points higher than
second-placed NT.
What is driving the ‘revolving door’?
The recent rise in imprisonment is unlikely to be due to changes in the
state’s crime rate. Long-term crime trends over the past 12 years. And while
some might blame recent government policies, given their open promotion
of “get tough” strategies related to crime control and the picture is a bit
more complex than this.
One contributing factor is the increased use of court-ordered parole in
combination with decreased use of suspended sentences. The Corrective
Services Act 2006 (QLD) stated that parole would be the from prison. As a
result, other forms of gradual or conditional release from prison, including
work release, temporary absences or home detention, were no longer
available.
In traditional forms of parole, parole boards determine the date of release
following a period of good behaviour. Although this form of parole
continued to exist for offenders sentenced to terms of three years or more,
the Act introduced court-ordered parole for offenders who have committed
less serious offences and are sentenced to three years or less. In these cases,
courts set the date of parole release at sentencing and parole could begin at
any point. In effect, offenders could serve their entire sentence in the
community on parole.
The aim of court-ordered parole was ostensibly to increase the level of
supervision for offenders in the community. All sentenced offenders would
receive at least some level of supervision – though the intensity of this
supervision would vary. But court-ordered parole has also been to

suspended sentences by providing magistrates with a supervised
alternative.
However, evidence suggests that a large proportion of these offenders
either return to prison as a result of a breach, leading to suspension or
cancellation of the order, or after committing a new offence. For instance,
our research indicates that about one in four court-ordered parolees return
to prison on a new offence after a three-year follow-up, in contrast to about
one in ten board-ordered parolees.
The reality is that the often minimal level of supervision may increase the
amount of scrutiny without providing much of the kind of support that
offenders might require for successful re-entry.
The increasingly constricted level of funding and resources devoted to
community corrections might also contribute to this result. Funding
restrictions limit the nature and extent of supervision that parole officers
with growing caseloads can provide. They also reduce the availability of
post-prison programs.
Certainly changes in the “back-end” release policies – such as
court-ordered parole – may have contributed to a revolving-door situation
in which offenders frequently return to prisons. It is possible that the less
frequent use of suspended sentences contributed because parolees are more
closely monitored, increasing the detection of breaches. However,
researchers have found, to the contrary, that suspended sentences may
actually lead to a rise in the imprisonment rate.
Whatever the reason, the issue is to find some way to deal with the rising
trend, and especially with the high levels of offender breaches.
Community reparation and rehabilitation work best
Recent evidence demonstrates the importance of focusing on re-entry and
reparation in two important ways.
First, research has demonstrated the importance of sanctions that combine
punishment with programs that help re-establish the offender in the
community. These emphasise punishment in the community rather than
removal from society – and include a range of rehabilitative cSecond,
helping offenders find and keep work has been shown to promote offender
change. This contributes to successful re-entry to society. Investing in

prison training and programs as well as prisoner reentry programs reduces
the risk of re-offending.
In Queensland, where QCS has provided vocational and educational
training programs, evidence indicates very positive results. have fallen for
prisoners who enrol in these programs.
Our research shows the completion of in-prison vocational and educational
training. In a forthcoming publication, we show that these work programs
are important starting points for offenders to change their patterns of
behaviour, forging new non-offending identities.
These types of programs will make a difference in helping offenders
reintegrate by tackling the risk factors for offending.

If I were asked to outline a plan to ensure increasing incarceration, both
generally and of vulnerable groups, I would just point to the Northern
Territory of Australia. No need to ; there is only 623 per 100,000. The
NT sits at 847 per 100,000 adults, nearly four times that of its nearest
Australian rival, Western Australia.
Last year in the Territory, 86% of those in prison and 96% of those in
juvenile detention were Indigenous.
The daily average number of prisoners has more than doubled in the last 20
years. By 2010 the growth in the NT prison population necessitated the
construction of a 1,000-bed,With its opening, there is one prison bed for
every 103 adults. Despite a recent report of lower-than-anticipated
increases in prisoner numbers, based on growth over the last five years the
new jail will reach capacity by 2018.
Adopt punitive policing and sentencing policies
As with many jurisdictions, “tough on crime” rhetoric dominates in the
Territory. The mandatory sentencing regime introduced by the Country

Liberal Party in the 1990s kick-started significant growth in prisoner
numbers. Daily averages grew by
Despite early promise, including removing much of the mandatory
sentencing regime, the decade-long Labor government also contributed
significantly to these trends. Restrictive bail laws have increased numbers
in custody, with 38% of those entering an adult prison and 60% of those
entering youth detention unsentenced on reception.
The remaining mandatory sentencing provisions, for serious violence and
aggravated property offences, mean that prison is the only option available
in many cases.
And while undoubtedly more people are in prison, our community is
certainly not safer. Recorded assaultsThe ineffectiveness of jail in
addressing violent crime (indeed most crime) is also glaringly apparent
when they have served a previous prison term.
Deny Indigenous people access to appropriate services
Despite attempts to Close the Gap, Indigenous people living in remote areas
of the Territory do not enjoy access to the same services as non-Indigenous
people living in similarly sized communities.
Growing up in a town of 60 in rural Queensland, my family had access to a
range of government services. These included a post office, a permanently
staffed police station, a local primary school and a high school a short bus
ride away. I cannot think of a similarly sized Indigenous community
enjoying such facilities.
This lack of services has direct and indirect effects on rates of Indigenous
incarceration. Without identification requirements for a driver’s licence,
with no licensing or vehicle registration services and no public transport,
Indigenous people, far more so than non-Indigenous people, are jailed for
minor driving offences. While recent reforms have reduced these numbers,
a not insignificant number of Aboriginal people have a criminal record for
such offences.
Community-based orders are often unavailable in remote areas as there are
no programs or Correctional Services staff to supervise them. Due to
overcrowding and poor housing, Aboriginal offenders are also unlikely to
meet the suitability requirements of a Home Detention Order (HDO).
While access to in-prison programs is low overall, access to culturally

appropriate programs is even lower. With a few notable exceptions,
programs are developed using Western psychological models and evidence
about non-Indigenous offenders. Their suitability and success for
Indigenous offenders are rarely evaluated.
Yet it’s ironically true, as one senior Corrections official once remarked,
that it’s hard to see why we have special programs for Indigenous prisoners.
Indeed, Indigenous-specific programming is all that’s needed.
Embrace alcohol consumption as a core social value
If largely unfettered access to alcohol is to be a problem then Territorians
must accept that high levels of violence are here to stay. The association
between excessive alcohol consumption and violence is long established, At
least in the Territory are alcohol-related.
Public health education and evidence-based programs can play important
roles in reducing alcohol-related harm. While such programs should be
funded appropriately, supply restrictions must also form part of our
response.
The 2007 NT introduced identification requirements for alcohol purchases
above $100 but coupled this with criminalising those who consumed
alcohol on Aboriginal land. The Banned Drinker Register showed early
promise through a system that prevented alcohol purchases by those on
certain court orders, but partisan politics brought it to an end in 2012.
Ignore evidence of what works in child protection and
youth justice
Based on the growing body of evidence that child protection involvement,
even notification to a child welfare system, is linked to involvement in the
criminal justice system, there are increasingly troubled times ahead.
child protection notifications increased by 30% and the number of
Indigenous children in out-of-home care by 26%. At the same time, the rate
of completed child protection investigations decreased.
Youth justice fares equally badly. Diversionary programs are underfunded
and exclude young people without a responsible adult. There are few
programs for young people in detention or in the community, particularly
in areas such as violent and sexual offending.

The failure of governments to meet the need for a suitable youth facility
means young people are now locked up in a jail deemed unfit for adults;
Correctional Services described the facility as
Both systems are effectively driving young people’s further and deeper
involvement in the criminal justice system. Young people are remanded in
custody, sometimes for weeks, because no parent or family member comes
to court, yet child protection maintains the young person is not in need of
care.
Criminal charges are routinely brought against young people in residential
facilities, rather than working through behavioural issues as we might in
our own homes. Children in care have unpaid fines incurring interest and
attracting further penalty, with no way of paying off these debts.
I offer no solutions here. When we decide we want different outcomes – a
safer community, fewer people in jail – those solutions can be found in the
thousands of words spoken and written by dozens of Aboriginal people and
organisations, lawyers, academics and others, over many, many years.

Although criminal justice agencies in Australia have, in recent years,
adopted an increasingly , responses to crime that rely on punishment alone
have failed to make our communities Instead, they have produced an This
has the potential to and places considerable strain on government budgets.
Increasing prison sentences criminal behaviour. Longer sentences are
associated with higher rates of re-offending. When prisoners return to their
communities, as the vast majority inevitably do, the problems multiply.
Exposing the limitations of punishment
In this context, it becomes important to think carefully about public policy
responses that aim to punish and deter offenders. Psychologists have been
under well-controlled laboratory conditions with both animals and humans
for nearly 100 years. Its effectiveness in promoting short-term behavioural
change, or even in suppressing negative behaviour, depends on rather
specific conditions being in place.
For punishment to work it has to be predictable. Punishment also has to be
applied at maximum intensity to work, or else tolerance and temporary
effects result. Yet applying very intense levels of punishment for many
offences goes against our sense of justice and fairness.
The threat of punishment, no matter how severe, will not deter anyone who
believes they can get away with it. It will also not deter those who are too
overcome by emotion or care about the consequences of their behaviour.
Punishment also has to be immediate. Delayed punishment provides
opportunities for other behaviours to be reinforced. In reality, it often takes
months – if not years – for someone to be apprehended, appear in court
and be sentenced.

Working towards more effective rehabilitation
Many of the conditions required for punishment to be effective will not
exist in any justice system. It follows that policies and programmes that
focus on rehabilitating offenders will have a greater chance of success in
preventing crime and improving community safety.
The origins of offender rehabilitation in Australia can be traced back to the
early penal colonies and, in particular, a prison governor on Norfolk Island
in 1840. Maconochie introduced the idea of indeterminate rather than fixed
sentences, implemented a system of rehabilitation in which good behaviour
counted towards prisoners’ early release, and advocated a system of
aftercare and community resettlement.
Maconochie’s ideas built on those of the great social reformers of
18th-century Britain, notably Quakers such as They were among the first to
try to change prisons from what they called “institutions of deep despair
and cruel punishment” to places that were more humane and had the
potential to reform prisoners’ lives.
These days, though, offender rehabilitation is often thought about in terms
of psychological treatment. We can chart the rise of current programmes
according to the broad traditions of behaviour modification The earliest
therapeutic work in the psychoanalytic tradition saw delinquent behaviour
as the product of a failure in psychological development. It was thought this
could be addressed through gaining insight into the causes of offending. A
wide range of group and milieu therapies were developed for use with
offenders, including psychodrama.
There are good grounds to develop standardised incentive models in
Australia’s prisons. Community-style therapeutic programmes for prisoners
with substance use problems in Victoria, NSW and the ACT represent
substantial advances in practice.
These programmes take advantage of the significant therapeutic
opportunities that arise by looking closely at prisoners’ social functioning
and day-to-day interactions. They actively encourage offenders to assume
responsibility not only for their own behaviour, but for that of others.
However, rehabilitation today is almost always associated with
cognitive-behavioural therapy. This targets a relatively narrow range of
crime-producing (or “criminogenic”) needs, including pro-criminal
attitudes – those thoughts, values and sentiments that support criminal

conduct. Programmes also dedicate a lot of time to trying to change
personality traits, such as low self-control, hostility, pleasure- or
thrill-seeking and lack of empathy.
Not everyone can be successfully treated. Substantial evidence now exists,
though, to suggest that this type of approach does produce socially
significant reductions in re-offending.
Essential steps in making corrections policy work
The challenges lie in ensuring that the right programmes are delivered to
the right people at the right time.
First, it is important that low-risk offenders have minimal contact with
higher-risk offenders. Extended contact is only likely to increase their risk
of recidivism. This has implications for prisoner case management, prison
design and for the courts.
Courts have the power to divert low-risk offenders from prison and thus
minimise contact with more entrenched offenders. Related to this is the
need to develop effective systems of community-based rehabilitation,
leaving prisons for the most dangerous and highest-risk offenders.
Second, concerted efforts are required to develop innovative programmes
for those who identify with Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander cultural
backgrounds. They are across all levels of the criminal justice system.
Third, staff need to be properly selected, trained, supervised and resourced
to deliver the highest-quality rehabilitation services to the most complex
and challenging people.
Finally, it is important to demonstrate that programmes actually make
offenders better, not worse. The types of evaluation that are needed to
attribute positive change to programme completion are complex, require
large numbers of participants and cross-jurisdictional collaboration. A
national approach to programme evaluation is sorely needed.
This is not to suggest that criminal behaviour shouldn’t be punished – only
that we should not rely on punishment by itself to change behaviour. We
need to create a true system of rehabilitation that can enhance the
corrective impact of punishment-based approaches.
It also doesn’t mean that punishment never works. It may work reasonably
well with some people – perhaps those who are future-oriented, have good

self-monitoring and regulation skills, and who can make the connection
between their behaviour and negative consequences months later.
Unfortunately, many people in prison simply aren’t like this. The challenge,
then, is two-fold: to find ways to make punishment more effective and to
tackle the causes of offending through high-quality rehabilitation.
Correctional services often get little credit for their efforts. They are widely
criticised when things go wrong. However, their efforts to rehabilitate
offenders are not only sensible, but also cost-efficient and practical.
We need to support efforts to create a true system of rehabilitation. Such a
system will be comprehensive, coherent and internally consistent in
applying evidence-based practice at all levels.

Whatever might be said about its successes and failures, it’s clear that 25
years after the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody
Australia has become much less compassionate, more punitive and more
ready to blame individuals for their alleged failings.

Nowhere is this clearer than in our desire for punishment. A harsh criminal
justice system – in particular, more prisons and people behind bars – has
apparently become a hallmark of good government.
This wasn’t always the case. But it just so happened that the royal
commission handed down its findings at a time when the politics of law and
order was rapidly changing.
Reform to intolerance
The 1970s through to the late 1980s was a period of criminal justice reform.
Decriminalisation of certain types of summary offences, such as public
drunkenness and prostitution; a commitment to reducing prison numbers
through the introduction of community service orders and other
non-custodial sentencing options; the development of mental health
services for offenders; specific programs for women prisoners; and
improved conditions for prisoners more generally: these wereBut, by the
late 1980s and early 1990s, changing political conditions were of the
criminal justice system.
This move toward “law and order” responses manifested in:
There was the need for “tougher” penalties, often based on political
expediency and media-fuelled public alarm over particular crimes.
While these administrative, legal and technical changes contributed to
increasing prison numbers, they also reflected a less tolerant and more
punitive approach to crime and punishment.
Put bluntly, the last 25 years have seen a spectacle of punishment most
graphically illustrated in climbing imprisonment rates. And these changes
were directly in opposition to the fundamental findings of the royal
commission, which advocated a reduction in Indigenous imprisonment
rates.
Self-fulfilling practices
Such is the financial cost of our commitment to reducing re-offending, and
significantly contributes to the further marginalisation of those who are
incarcerated.
These increases in imprisonment in Australia have been paralleled in other
countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States, New Zealand and,

more recently, Canada. It is this that has led these countries down the path
of a harsher approach to crime and punishment.
In contrast, European jurisdictions that have more social democratic and
corporatist forms of government have relied less on exclusionary and
punitive approaches to punishment.
But states that experienced a decline in principles and policies reflecting the
welfare state and embraced neoliberal notions had a realignment of values
and approaches that emphasised “deeds over needs”.
Their focus shifted from rehabilitative goals to an emphasis on deterrence
and retribution. Individual responsibility and accountability increasingly
became the core of the way justice systems responded to offenders.
Privatisation of institutions and services; widening social and economic
inequality; and new or renewed insecurities around fear of crime,
terrorism, “illegal” immigrants and racial, religious and ethnic minorities
have all impacted the way their criminal justice systems operate.
Human warehouses
In understanding the use of imprisonment, one of the most important
points to grasp is that a rising imprisonment rate is not directly or simply
related to an increase in crime.
The use of prison is a function of government choices; it reflects
government policy and legislation, as well as judicial decision-making.
Imprisonment rates in Australia are, since increases in imprisonment rates
have continued while crime rates have levelled or fallen in many categories
of crime from 2000. Similar patterns The growth of the law-and-order
agenda has also resulted in far weaker ideological differentiation between
major political parties on criminal justice policy. The most politically
expedient response to crime is the promotion and implementation of the
“toughest” approach.
While conservative political parties may have traditionally appeared to be
“tougher” on crime and punishment, many Australian states and territories,
such as New South Wales.

What’s your zombie apocalypse survival plan?”
The question invites the liveliest discussions of the semester. I teach a
course on social movements in fiction and film at West Virginia University,
where George Romero’s first film, “Night of the Living Dead,” is on the
syllabus. The film was groundbreaking in its use of horror as political
critique. Half a century later, Romero’s films are still in conversation with
racial politics in the United States, and Romero’s recent death calls for
reflection on his legacy as a filmmaker.
Disquieted times

Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, an English professor and at George Washington
University, that “Like all monsters, zombies are metaphors for that which
disquiets their generative times.”

Romero shot “Night of the Living Dead” in 1967, when Americans’ attention
was focused on powerful televised images of race riots in cities like Newark
and Detroit, and on the Vietnam War, the likes of which were Romero
reimagined scores of bleeding faces, twisted in rage or vacant from trauma,
as the zombie hoard. He filtered public anger and anxieties through the
hoard, reflecting what many viewed as liberals’ rage and disappointment
over a lack of real social change and others saw as conservatives’ fear over
disruptions in race relations and traditional family structures. This is the
utility of the zombie as a political metaphor – it’s flexible; there is room
enough for all our fears.
In “Night of the Living Dead,” an unlikely cross-section of people are
cornered in a farmhouse by a zombie hoard. They struggle with each other
and against the zombies to survive the night. At the end of the film, black
protagonist Ben Huss is the sole survivor. He emerges from the basement
at daybreak, only to be mistaken for a zombie and shot by an all-white
militia. The militiamen congratulate each other and remark that Huss is
“another one for the fire.” They never realize their terrible error. Perhaps
they are inclined to see Huss as a threat to begin with, because he is black.
At the start of Romero’s next film, “Dawn of the Dead,” in which another
unlikely bunch faces off against zombies in a shopping mall, police
surround a public housing building. One officer remarks on the unfairness
of putting blacks and Hispanics in these “big-ass fancy hotels” and proceeds
to shoot residents indiscriminately, not distinguishing between the living
and the undead.
The officers are shooting to restore the “natural order” in which the dead
stay dead. But their actions also restore the prevailing social order and the
institutions that create and reinforce racial inequality.
Zombie revival
In my class, I connect these scenes of dehumanization to contemporary
racial politics, using them as a springboard for conversations about racially
motivated police violence and the Black Lives Matter movement. These
discussions focus on the zombie as a dehumanized creature.
In returning from the dead, zombies lose their human essence – their
agency, critical reasoning capacities, empathy and language. As Cohen
said, “Zombies are a collective, a swarm. They do not own individualizing
stories. They do not have personalities. They eat. They kill. They shamble.
They suffer and they cause suffering. They are dirty, stinking, and poorly

dressed. They are indifferent to their own decay.” Zombies retain a human
form, but lose their individuality and are dehumanized in their
reanimation.
Minority victims of police shootings are often portrayed in the media as
dangerous, animalistic and even monstrous – meaning they, too, argue
that perceptions of humanity are a critical part of social cognition – the way
we process or think about other people and social settings. When we see
people or groups as less than human, predictable consequences arise.
Romero’s films tune us in to our own potential for dehumanization.
Zombie psychology
relaxes our moral restrictions on doing harm to others and ultimately
facilitates against them. When people see members of a group as an
undifferentiated “hoard,” they’re susceptible to the same error as the
militiamen in “Night of the Living Dead.” When they couple
dehumanization with hatred, resentment or fear, they become like the
resentful police officer in “Dawn of the Dead.” Dehumanization of black
Americans underpins the violence perpetrated against them in Romero’s
films and in America today.
Dehumanization isn’t confined to police violence. shows that
dehumanization of Muslims and Hispanics underlies support for restrictive
immigration policies and a border wall. It also undercuts support for aid to
refugees.

Nightlife precincts in Australian cities have come under intense scrutiny in
recent years following a spate of “one punch” assaults and other incidents.
Places like Sydney’s Kings Cross, Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley and Perth’s
Northbridge have been framed as unsafe and unruly “problem spaces” – the
kind of places that parents warn their teenage children to avoid.

The championing and criticism of nightlife spaces create something of a
paradox. On the one hand, the promotion of vibrant nightlife spaces may be
seen as an invitation to people to revel and consume. It’s thought that
failing to attract enough people to these spaces spells economic disaster for
venue operators and for the city itself.
On the other hand, violence and fear discourage or exclude people from
participating in nightlife. And labelling nightlife precincts as disorderly or
“out of control” stigmatises these spaces and revellers, leading to more
exclusion.
The policy challenge is to establish the right amount and types of regulation
so that nightlife spaces allow for mild transgression in a safe environment.

When security excludes
Part of the response to these issues has been tighter regulation and security
in nightlife spaces. “Lockout laws” were introduced in parts of Sydney,
following the example set in the trials in Perth, Melbourne and Brisbane.
These laws wound back the operating hours of licensed venues in popular
night-time precincts.

Other responses from governments and private operators have included
expanding CCTV surveillance, introducing ID scanners at venue entrances,
increasing police and private security presence, and slowing or suspending
the issuing of new liquor licenses.
These measures are intended to make people safer and to make
them feel safer, to reduce the exclusionary effect of fear. Ironically, these
hyper-visible forms of security can in fact make people These regulatory
interventions are more than just about tackling violence and threatening
behaviour. Ultimately, they are about imposing particular ideas of social
and moral order not only within nightlife spaces but the city more broadly.

Gentrifying the night
Alongside the expansion of hyper-visible security, major public and private
investment has flowed into nightlife precincts and surrounding areas over
the last decade or so.
These developments have Northbridge, which has been gradually
gentrifying. The rapid rise in the number of small boutique bars, high-end
restaurants and apartments is evidence of this.
The gentrification of Northbridge and other nightlife precincts across
metropolitan Australia – whether through new “sophisticated” venues
replacing older downmarket ones, or through displacing nightlife
altogether – is not a recipe for less exclusionary spaces. Rather, these
developments produce a different kind of exclusion due to two factors.
First, certain groups may be priced out of more upmarket venues offering
an “exclusive” or “sophisticated” experience. Second, these venues and the
types of customers they attract can make other individuals and groups feel
out of place. If they don’t fit the written and unwritten admission criteria
they may be denied entry altogether.
Making space for transgression
In reshaping the moral geography of nightlife precincts, securitisation and
gentrification are suppressing one of the fundamental appeals of nightlife –
the opportunity for behaviour that transgresses social, cultural and even
legal codes.

Participating in nightlife spaces in cities has been a way to briefly escape
the often-mundane orderliness of everyday home and work life. Nightlife
spaces have historically been important for minority, subcultural and
countercultural groups – minority ethnic groups, punks, goths, and so on –
to socialise and to express their individual and collective identities.
The increasingly expensive cost and overbearing regulatory regimes
governing nightlife seem designed to attract the “right type” of people and
to make them feel safer.
The risk of all this is that we might be sleepwalking into the creation of
sanitised and yet more homogeneous and exclusionary nightlife spaces.

There has been a rise in global statistical initiatives that measure and rank
countries in terms of various aspects of the human condition. Some of the
more prominent examples include the World Governance, the Global Peace
and the Corruption Perceptions
Each ranks countries according to a series of indicators, or a composite
indicator, and tracks their progress or decline over time.
One of the most recent global indicator projects is the It ranks 142
countries based on a perception survey relating to personal safety and
policing, from a representative sample of 1000 people in each country.
Knowing how secure, or insecure people feel is important because
insecurity affects economic growth and undermines development.
According to the recently released 2018 South Africa ranks high in the
insecurity index – 137 out 142 countries. This means that South Africans
would have expressed high levels of insecurity as well as fear that they were
likely to, or had already, fallen victim to crime.
The ranking suggests that South Africans consider themselves to be more
insecure, and having lower levels of confidence in the police, compared to
people in Yemen, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Central
African Republic (CAR), Libya and Mali. These are all unstable states
affected by violent conflict and high levels of instability.
This is surprising given that South Africa is not in a state of armed conflict
and is relatively stable. The possible reason for such a questionable ranking
is that the survey, like many global perception surveys, doesn’t adequately
account for the extent to which people will provide unreliable information
about sensitive issues. To improve accuracy, surveys like this should factor
in differences in context.
The rankings
The rankings are based on an index score derived from responses to the
following questions:

● In the city or area where you live, do you have confidence in the local police
force?
● Do you feel safe walking alone at night in the city or area where you live?
● Within the last 12 months, have you had money or property stolen from you
or another household member?
● Within the past 12 months, have you been assaulted or mugged?
It’s undeniable that South Africa has high levels of insecurity and
interpersonal crime. And, there’s a significant trust deficit between citizens
and the police.
Ranking South Africa below the DRC, Mali and Libya is also questionable
given that the security forces and militias in those countries have been
widely regarded as predatory and highly abusive.
So what’s missing?
Context
Firstly, context is key.
A key shortcoming of using survey data about crime and insecurity to
construct indices and rankings is that people won’t always reply to
questions honestly and accurately.
To improve the accuracy of indices like this, it would be advisable to
develop a quantifiable weighting for the reliability of crime and insecurity
survey data for each country, and then apply the weighting to the overall
index score. For example, in countries with more authoritarian
governments, respondents are likely to under report their levels of trust in
the police and sense of personal insecurity.
Applying a reliability weighting would adjust the overall insecurity index
score to better reflect people’s lived reality. Such a weighting can be
developed by including additional questions in the survey, for example
about how willing respondents are to talk to strangers about sensitive
information, including views about their governments.

Just last week, the significance was given to Akon Guode, a mother who
killed three of her children after driving her car into a lake in Melbourne.
The main reason for the 81⁄2 year sentence reduction was that the trial
judge had not sufficiently taken Guide’s major depression into account.
While the circumstances of this offence were unusual, it is for offenders to
have mental health problems. have shown that almost half of Australian
prison entrants report being affected by a mental disorder. With that in
mind, how are mental health issues taken into account during the criminal
justice process?
Where this happens, the sentencing judge must decide whether to take the
offender’s mental health problems into account. There will be a sentencing
hearing, in which evidence of the offender’s mental health condition will be
presented. The judge must consider this evidence, as well as the relevant
sentencing principles, in reaching a verdict.

1. It may reduce an offender’s “moral culpability” or
   blameworthiness for the offence.
   This will only be the case where there was a link between the mental health
   condition and the offence. For example, the condition may have impaired
   the offender’s ability to think clearly about the offending behaviour. In such
   circumstances, there is less need to denounce the relevant conduct or to
   punish the perpetrator as harshly.
2. A mental impairment may affect the that is imposed or its
   conditions.For example, it may provide a reason for or for requiring an
   offender to get
3. The offender’s mental health condition may make him or her
   an unsuitable vehicle for sending a deterrent message to the
   community.
   One circumstance in which this may be the case is where the offender’s
   condition is likely to attract community
4. The offender’s mental impairment may make it inappropriate
   to send him or her a deterrent message.
   One of these is where the offender has an impaired capacity to learn from
   the court’s statements.
5. An offender’s mental health condition may result in
   punishment weighing more heavily on him or her than it would
   on a person in normal health.
   This provides a reason for reducing the level of punishment.
6. There may be a serious risk that imprisonment would cause a
   deterioration in the offender’s mental health.
   This also provides a basis for imposing a more lenient sanction.
   While not included in the Verdins principles, mental health problems may
   also affect an offender’s perceived prospects for This will often depend on
   whether the relevant condition is considered treatable.
   Each of these principles is mitigating – they point towards a more lenient
   sentence being given. However, it is also possible for a mental health
   condition to point towards the need for a more severe sentence. This will be
   the case where the community is seen to require protection from the
   offender due to that condition. the offender’s condition may be considered
   untreatable, and his or her criminal behaviour unlikely to change as a
   result.
   It will sometimes be the case that an offender’s mental health condition will
   provide reasons for both reducing and increasing an offender’s sentence. In
   such cases, the judge will need to balance all of the conflicting
   considerations and determine the most appropriate sentence.
   The Verdins principles apply to any kind of mental disorder or abnormality,
   and have been used for offenders suffering from schizophrenia, depression
   and bipolar disorder.