What Brock Turner did was horrific, abominable, almost unthinkable. But we must not allow our natural and appropriate disgust at his act blind us to the evidence about what works and what doesn’t work, if we want to prevent him and others from doing it again, and if we want to afford victims the best opportunity to heal.

Losing one’s licence is an economic and social catastrophe for those living in regional Australia. Those caught under the NSW’s drug driving laws face an automatic disqualification period of six months. In special circumstances, for example where the offender requires their licence to care for an elderly family member or commute to and from work, the court has discretion to suspend their licence for three months. However, with public transport practically non-existent in regional and rural areas, the lives of those who reside or work away from town often fold inwards immediately.

While global solidarity for things the like the #BlackLivesMatter movement in the US is important, it is always interesting to see it trending in Australia, when there is so little interest in analysing our own institutionalised racial policing. Is it just another by-product of US cultural imperialism that we care more about America’s racist criminal justice system than our own?