An off-duty Corrections officer who was walking his dog was slashed with a knife in Palmerston on Monday, the offender allegedly telling him he knew what he did for a job, which is the second time in a fortnight that a Corrections officer has been attacked with an edged weapon while in public, the United Workers Union said.
UWU NT secretary Erina Early told the NT Independent about the attack, which she said happened at about 12.30pm on Monday. It was not made public by NT Police by the end of the working day on Wednesday.
“They are not safe. So what are we going to do about it?” Clearly, as recorded. The Officer . . . stalked. Not an accidental, emotional reaction? Worrisome. One further development whereby violence advances further into core of community values, expectations.
One could be excused for believing the entire Territory population has lost its grasp of reality. Violent criminals do whatever they like and with no effective constraints on their behaviour, but society at large has been disarmed and disallowed even to defend itself.
Children denied parenting, observe this one-sided contest and emulate the criminals while the ABC, academia, and judiciary champion even deeper commitment to zero consequences.
Meanwhile, the NT Government refuses to explore previously-proved options for crime reduction and continues to impose measures that have failed for half a century: paroles that are routinely violated; release on bail for violent offenders; and mindlessly reduced stints in crime universities sternly labelled “prisons”.
Violent criminals remain so for life, so why release them at all? Prisons are expensive and do not rehabilitate. Politicians are groping blindly in the self-imposed darkness of policy-isolation; refusing to consider alternatives.
There are those in the mainstream community who do have answers but they are locked outside the Minister’s bureaucratic barricades; obstacles that must be torn down if the Territory is to survive.