One-Punch Cases: Why People Commit Crimes

Why people commit crime is very important in the ongoing debate of how crime should be handled and prevented. Many theories have emerged over the years, and they continue to be explored, individually and in combination, as criminologists seek the best solutions in ultimately reducing types and levels of crime. (Important Theories in Criminology, 2012) One-Punch cases came into the spotlight in 2013 however has been in the background for many years and was previously known as a ‘King hit’ due to the common occurrence of the incident taken place in Sydney’s Kings Cross the term king hit was also found to be glorifying the offenders. This then lead to a name change to ‘coward punch’ but then turned to ‘One-punch’. One punch cases have taken the lives of 90 people since 2000 in Australia. The term refers to an incident …show more content…
On January 21st 2014, NSW premier Barry O’Farrell announced a 16 point plan to tackle the drug and alcohol violence including, a new pone punch law with an aggravated version having a 25 year maximum and an 8 year mandatory minimum sentence where the offender is intoxicated by drugs and/or alcohol, a maximum sentence increase from two to 25 years for the illegal supply and possessions of steroids, new state wide 10:00pm closing times for all bottle shops, etc. Then on the 30th of January 2014 without any public consultation the NSW law reform commission read for a second time the crimes and other legislation amendment bill 2014 and the liquor amendment bill 2014 and with alarming speed the bills were passed by both houses. The New South Wales parliament added two new offences to the crimes act 1900: assault causing death and an aggravated version of that offence where the offender is intoxicated at the time of the committing the offence. For only the second time in recent history, the NSW parliament introduced a mandatory minimum sentence. (Quilter,