Patron banning in Australia embodies a range of exclusionary measures in response to alcoholrelated disorder. Patrons can be banned from licensed venues, entertainment precincts or wider public areas. Banning mechanisms remove and exclude troublesome individuals and are presumed to deter them, and others, from engaging in further problematic behaviour. The use of exclusion reflects key assumptions in relation to alcohol-related disorderly behaviour and effective management of risks to which it may give rise. However, the rationale underpinning much of the banning-related legislative and operational policing developments reflects largely unsubstantiated assertions of need and effect. Despite the steady expansion of banning powers across Australian jurisdictions there is limited oversight of their use. This article examines the expansion of police-imposed banning powers. Their discretionary, on-the-spot and permissible pre-emptive imposition has potential consequences that extend beyond the management of alcohol-related issues. Yet their use and effect has been subject to little scrutiny.

Jurisdictions across Australia have implemented a range of policies to tackle problems associated with alcohol consumption in and around licensed premises. One key measure, patron banning, has proliferated in various forms. Banning applies spatial restrictions and locational prohibitions upon recipients. It is typically predicated upon a presumed deterrent effect for both recipients and the wider community to reduce alcohol-related disorderly behaviors and to improve public safety. This article documents a mapping review of patron banning mechanisms across Australian jurisdictions, using an analysis of legislation, operational practices, policy documentation and reviews, published data, and research literature. The mapping review then frames an analysis of banning policy. Key conceptual and operational issues are discussed with respect to deterrence and community protection; displacement, diffusion, and isolation of effects; enforcement; due process and legitimacy; and the steady civilianization of punishment. Given the wide range and reach of banning mechanisms, there is an urgent need for specific empirical examination of the use and effect of spatial exclusion and prohibition across Australia’s nighttime economy to inform policy development and refinement, to strengthen the assurance of due process, and to optimize the potential beneficial effects of patron banning.

Problems associated with excessive alcohol consumption have prompted a range of legislative, regulatory and operational responses. One provision empowers licensees, in Australian jurisdictions such as Victoria and South Australia, to formally exclude patrons from their venues and the surrounding public area. The imposition of a licensee-barring order requires no demonstrable offence to be committed. No proof needs to be documented and the ban takes effect immediately. Non-compliance is subject to police enforcement and possible criminal breach proceedings. The process through which a barring order may be challenged can be ambiguous and time consuming, and the punishment is typically served regardless of the review outcome. However, limited data are available to enable assessment of the way in which barring orders are used. As such, this paper examines how licensee-barring orders extend to non-judicial and non-law enforcement officers an on-the-spot and pre-emptive power to punish. Yet, with no formal training, monitoring or meaningful oversight of their use, barring orders are open to abuse and constitute a summary power to punish that is opaque to scrutiny.

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