A Tennant Creek local is getting over a bloody ugly, booze-fuelled attack at the start of the year that’s left him scarred, shaken and a very different man to what he was before New Year’s Eve 2009.

But one thing about Jack is he’s not about revenge, race politics, or anything other than getting on with life and work.

Jack I take my hat off to you.

It’d be easy for you to be angry, to want to take the law into your own hands, to talk racial hatred.

But you haven’t and quoting from “Jail for glass attack” (TDT 28/8/09), “I’m not out to seek revenge, I’m too busy to be mulling over it. I always intended to leave his punishment up to the judge.”

Well said Jack.

We may not always agree with the decisions of our judges, magistrates and the legal system in general.

But the law is far too important to be tampered with by anyone, least of all politicians.

If the sentence copped by Jack’s attacker seemed light, then know that the Director of Public Prosecutions is considering appealing it.

Know that the legal system itself will review the case and know that your concerns are shared and heard elsewhere.

Fighting antisocial and unacceptable behaviour is everyone’s business and it takes guts, patience, compassion, responsibility and action to make a difference.

Family responsibility is a key and early intervention is imperative for keeping our ‘high risk’ punters out of trouble and the criminal justice system.

As the Minister for Correctional Services I front the challenge for Government of reducing crime and offending behaviour through a system intervention after the courts and you know we have a lot of work to do in this area.

This challenge also falls to the difficulties and complexities of returning an offender to the community where both the individual and their community share a responsibility to change the environment that went some way to creating the offending behaviour.

Challenges for us all and that’s what I have come to call, the price of freedom!