At this stage I’m not calling on DOCs for anything - especially not the names of the guilty parties who let these twelve deaths happen. That’s just playing The Hun’s silly game.

I’ve got a new post in the works on the hun campaign (brings out the issues that I’m interested in a little better), so I’ll be closing this thread and discussion can move over there.

A few years ago, mothers weren’t being charged in cases of extreme neglect and infanticide, but they are being held more to account recently, including in cases where they have stood by and allowed husbands or de-factos to maim/kill the child, and are being charged as accessories etc.

I have no problem with this at all.

gummo, what interventions are you asking for, from DOCs (or whatever the Vic version is called?) which might help to avoid these terrible tragedies?

for anyone’s interest, here is a link to the 2003 report on Fatal Assault and Neglect of Children and Young People by NSW Child Death Review Team

http://www.kids.nsw.gov.au/files/cdrt_fatal_abuse_neglect2003.pdf

(I couldn’t find the 2004/5 report). The Team reports on all cases of child death in NSW. It was through this report this shocking SMH article drew from:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/midnight-in-croydons-garden-of-evil/2006/07/14/1152637872260.html

A custodial sentence in this case, should the allegations prove true, is extremely unlikely

Tell that to Andrea Yates.

I do have sympathy for mothers who tragically kill their children in the midst of psychotic episodes. I can’t imagine their anguish when treatment breaks their psychosis and they must face what they have done. Treatment before the psychosis took hold could well have saved the child(ren), but now it never will.

I don’t have the same sympathy for non-psychotic murdering mothers. Or any non-psychotic murderer. Not at all.

Good historical overview from Am J Psychiatry 161:1548-1557, September 2004: Maternal Infanticide Associated With Mental Illness: Prevention and the Promise of Saved Lives

BBC
Mother spared jail for baby death

She denied the murder of Alexander Gallon but her guilty plea to infanticide was accepted.

Brian Forster QC, defending, said Wails had been suffering from postnatal depression and was struggling to cope with caring for her son.

You sir are a buffoon.

A custodial sentence in this case, should the allegations prove true, is extremely unlikely and will probably result, after the inevitable appeal, in a suspended sentence, counselling and an Oprah TV appearance in sympathy.

We wait and see.

Killing babies - infanticide - is no big deal these days it would seem, especially for mothers. A bad hair day and a bit of depression are all that’s required to walk free.

In the present liberal judicial climate, five years in this case could be seen as a severe sentence.

Sadly, babies just don’t rate these days. I wonder why?

but what of “hotblooded” killing.

Is it always manslaughter?

surely its just as dangerous to have a person with a predisposition to violence causing death walking around the streets than a cold blooded calculator?

Most of the attackers in these cases didn’t “just lose it” one time. These are cases of children being used as punching bags again and again and again. When autopsies are perfromed, the children more likely than not have old injuries from previous times dad has “just lost it”. Meaning that it may not be pre-meditated exectly, but it’s also not just one out of character deadly attack.

Its not necessarily about trying for murder anyway, in my opinion. It’s about punishing the manslaughter appropriately. Attacking a child is not the same thing as getting into a fight at the pub and accidentally hitting the other guy too hard, and should be punished more severely. Manslaughter carries a maximum term of 20 years, none of the men in the article received sentences close to that.

See, here’s where I see some of the problem - a fully grown adult should know that getting angry and “losing it� with a child or baby could reasonably result in death or serious injury to a child, so the normal rules of manslaughter don’t allow for adequate punishment in these cases.

I couldn’t agree more.

And what’s more, I don’t think they just “should” know, I think they *do* know.

By all means, we should have grades of sentencing in manslaughter cases depending on whether a death is due to accidental negligence, criminal negligence, depraved indifference etc or an enraged frenzy. A person who explodes into frenzied fatal attacks definitely requires a significant custodial sentence for society’s protection (although perhaps in a locked mental ward rather than a gaol).

But without premeditation a deadly attack simply is not murder, no matter how sympathetic the victim, and should never be tried as such.

“Well, it should be manslaughter. Getting angry, losing it and killing a child is clearly not as morally culpable as planning and carrying out a cold-blooded killing”

See, here’s where I see some of the problem - a fully grown adult should know that getting angry and “losing it” with a child or baby could reasonably result in death or serious injury to a child, so the normal rules of manslaughter don’t allow for adequate punishment in these cases.

I don’t think it’s a beat up to point out that the victims of these crimes are vulnerable, tiny, babies and children - and to talk about “provocation” where children were crying, misbehaving etc, is just obscene. I have two children of my own, one of whom spent the formative months of her life crying for no apparant reason, so I know about how a crying child can make you doubt your sanity but WE are the adults, and supposed to know better. There should be damn serious consequences for “losing it” and killing or maiming a child. As it is, you could get a longer sentence for robbing a bank.

Naunce, man. Naunce.

As I recall, that discussion was not about the appropriate penalties for domestic violence, but whether an awareness campaign about the most common form of DV is appropriate.

Are YOU arguing here that we shouldn’t talk about child-killers? Of course not - they’re two separate threads, with completely different terms of reference.

This one is about cheap shoddy journalism in ‘outrage campaigns’.

BBB

Under common law and statute law in New South Wales, a person who would otherwise be guilty of murder may have his or her criminal liability reduced to manslaughter if the killing occurred in circumstances of provocation.

This implies that the accused person’s conduct is partially excused because of the highly provocative circumstances in which the killing occurred, rather than the killing itself being justified in the circumstances. This would explain a case in which, for example, a baby’s continued crying was held to be capable of amounting to provocation at law.

And this is how they get mansluaghter and this is how they get light sentences.

We had a big discussion about “provocation” in last weeks discussion about Male to Female domestic Violence.

The concensus seemed to be that there was “no excuse never ever” - Fair enough - or do Babys have different rights?

NSW LINK

Blithe about actual, documented atrocities? No, Andrew, somewhat cynical about the Hun’s coverage of the issue, which is basically pitched at readers who like a good dose of outrage with their morning coffee.

Outrage is easy, so is whipping up a campaign for tougher sentencing of child-killers (scare quotes optional - I prefer them because it’s the Hun’s emotive phrase, not mine). But the point of the post, for those who missed it is in the last sentence - the Hun’s posturing on this issue will do sod all to prevent future child killings.