Amnesty International should know better.
Criminals are forever using family histories as mitigating circumstances. ie. diminished responsibility to try and weasel their way out of being made responsible for their actions.
I was drunk, or I was drug affected do not cut it as excuses. Everyone knows what drugs (alcohol is a drug) do to you. So, if you go on a bender knowing that you'll become violent, if anything, further amplifies your guilt.
In the case of this woman who assaulted the police member, I don't know if she was drunk, sober, on ice or whatever. But she did the crime, now she has to do the time.
I'll bet anything that if this magistrate became a victim of crime that he'd do anything possible to see the perpetrators serve the maximum possible time. If we had a judiciary who believe in punishments fitting the crime then there wouldn't be a need for mandatory sentencing.