DO the crime, do the time.
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Everyone deserves a second chance.
These two lines of thought are colliding head on in the minds of millions about the imminent fate of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran in Indonesia.
Australians from all walks of life have united in pleading to the Indonesian government to show mercy.
Plenty of Australians are also saying the pair was smuggling a life-destroying drug within a sovereign country; they knew the seriousness of the risk and the crime and that the Indonesian government was cracking down on drugs in a way that the Australian government should.
So much diplomatic effort and sympathy, they say, would be better directed elsewhere.
Part of me thinks that, given the potential damage of the drugs they were smuggling, that they deserve to cop whatever is coming to them, but another part of me thinks that after a decade in prison, they have done the time appropriate for the crime.
I grew up with a bloke who committed a horrific murder in the late 1990s and has been out of jail for several years now, and we have to concede that there are many people who have done much worse than Chan and Sukumar-an who are still walking our streets.
The punishment for the trafficking needed to be severe, but there is almost always a chance to turn bad into good.
There is compelling evidence that these men have turned their lives around and learned their lessons.
Like many, Moruya’s Sandy Wilder believes the Indonesian government could allow the men to use their experience to warn others not to follow the same path.
If they are shot dead, the chance to do that will die with them.
How would those who are begging the Indo-nesians not to kill the pair feel if one of their family died of an overdose?
Others ask how those who approve of the executions would feel if it was their children on death row?
The crimes were premeditated but they were far short of child rape or a gun massacre.
– Josh Gidney