Buted: Fiction follows the crisis of West Australian Justice Dept

BUSTED

When two offenders escaped from a minimum security prison; when a vicious prisoner raped and entrapped, at knife point, a female educational officer in a regional prison, when a parolee committed further offenses including the murder of a young female, when a dozen plus prisoners walked out of the Supreme Court, stole vehicles from terrified citizens and sped off at high speeds, and alarmed staff complained, the Department of Justice in Western Australia was called to account. The state government recruited Justice Mahoney from the eastern side of Australia to review what the western side was doing with offenders. $2.5 million was allocated to discover that many of the staff complaints made against the department were indeed valid. His 148 recommendations were largely ignored by the former Premier (Governor).

In the words of Colin Barnett who is now the Premier of Western Australia “everyone in Western Australia was absolutely furious at the way in which the government was administering justice.” During an explosive Parliamentarian discussion about this inquiry Mr R. F. Johnson said “Justice in Western Australia has been in crisis for the past two years.”

The Con, written by Gael McCarte (former psychologist with the offending department) fictionalizes the work of a psychologist within the department at the time. The author has artfully personified the issues and presented them in the difficult to put down, impossible to predict novel. The reader has a unique glimpse into the mind of the offender and the fermenting politics of the department. The reader pulls up a ringside seat to family life in Western Australia lived in real and fictionalized communities. The intriguing practices of the parents of the elite schools are presented. The reader is invited to local annual events like “The Show”, the famed Aussie beaches and to meet ‘George” the pelican of the Peel area.

Anna the psychologist in The Con proposes a solution to the offender assessment quandary, “I have noticed, and it is validated by the research, that the vast majority of crimes are committed by the vast minority of offenders. Most crimes are, from my perspective, crimes of passion, crimes of opportunity, crimes of stupidity, crimes of need, crimes of retribution, even mental illness, not real criminality. But those who are career criminals like Sean are the offenders of havoc. They run amuck, fast. The Department does its best to keep them in its sights. To do this the Department becomes its own con man, telling itself it is succeeding when it isn’t, telling itself it isn’t hurting its employees when it is. It tells itself it wants to keep doing what it is doing because it is working, when it isn’t…Why not test the offenders to weed out, as it were, the truly psychopathic criminals, and treat the different categories of offenders differently?”

Will her suggestion be taken seriously or will the politics of the department strangle her enthusiasm and neutralize any positive impact this suggestion could effect? Will the department’s lack of effective offender assessment and treatment bite it? The suggestions of the Mahoney Report could benefit many a Justice Department.

The Con
by Gael McCarte (nom de plume)
Published by GlobalEdAdvancePress,
under FACTION IMPRINT
www.globaledadvance.ord
ISBN: 978-1-935434-53-5


Smashwords Edition
Copy right 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4580-0033-0


Gail Buesnel writing as Gael McCarte
770 695 0034
765 Rivercove Drive
Dacula Ga 30019
McAuthor2@gmail.com
http://www.seekbooks.com.au/book/The-Con/isbn/9781935434535.htm
http://www.amazon.com/Gael-McCarte/dp/1935434535/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1295287982&sr=1-1
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