Factors…count them.
Steven Bates was in jail serving a sentence for robbery when his mother died from a drug overdose in March last year, a District Court judge heard yesterday.
An approach was made so authorities would release Bates to attend the funeral of his mother, Louise, but it was rejected.
When Bates was released from jail, he made an approach at a birthday party to a man suspected of supplying drugs to his mother and said: “Have you got something to say to me, bro?”
The man said he had nothing to say and several hours later Bates, 21, inflicted a knife wound to his neck.
So we have a robber son who’s doing time in jail. We have a Mom who dies of an overdose. We have a system that thinks there are reasons to let people out of prison. We have a drug dealer attending a party.
We also have a country (Australia) that heavily restricts firearms and blades.
And we have a dead drug dealer from knife wounds.
Could they have expected anything different?
Of course Australia has a very low “Gun Death” rate. Doesn’t that make it sound nicer?
