Criminal Justice Law Reform Challenges for the Future: It’s Time to Curb Australia’s Prison Addiction

European Journal of Probation

Martinovic

2017

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Electronic monitoring (EM) has been introduced in over 30 countries around the world. In most English-speaking countries, it has moved well beyond experimental status and become a regularly applied penal measure. Australia has been lagging behind this world trend, as EM has yet not become dominant in our correctional landscape. This is even though sanctions that utilise radio-frequency and/or global positioning systems (GPS) monitoring have existed in Australia for decades. This article critically examines overseas evaluative findings of EM in relation to recidivism, cost-effectiveness and net-widening, as well as some of the issues and concerns that are associated with EM. The article then summarises and explains the limited Australian EM experience to date. It predicts that increased application of EM in Australia seems likely and should be evidence-based. In this context, there is an urgent need for increased understanding about the use and impact of EM in Australia. The article concludes with some observations about the importance of comparative analysis in this context.

Section: The Australian Penal Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

“… 1. By way of international context, this rate is low compared with the US – which imprisons more than 700 people per 100,000 – but it is three times higher than in the Scandinavian countries (Walmsley, 2016; for discussion, see Bartels, in press). …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Electronic monitoring: The experience in Australia

European Journal of Probation

Martinovic

2017

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“…However, abandoning the sentencing discount should be strongly resisted. Longer sentences would be inevitable, leading to increases in the imprisonment rate, with no advantage in terms of a reduction in crime and disadvantages in terms of both financial and broader social costs (see Bartels, 2017). Moreover, with no incentive for defendants to plead guilty, it is likely that delays in the criminal justice system would be exacerbated and many more stakeholders in a case would suffer the stress of a trial, with the potential for retraumatisation particularly high for victims of sexual offences.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Juror and community views of the guilty plea sentencing discount: Findings from a national Australian study

Warner

Spiranovic

Criminology & Criminal Justice

et al. 2020

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A plea of guilty is a long-accepted factor mitigating sentence in many countries, including Australia, although academic debate over the merits and application of the discount is ongoing. This paper presents findings from a national Australian study on public opinion on the guilty plea sentencing discount, with a particular focus on sexual offences. Survey data were drawn from 989 jurors in cases that resulted in a guilty verdict and 450 unempanelled jurors and 306 online respondents who were provided with vignettes based on real cases. A third of the respondents would have supported a discount in their case if the offender had pleaded guilty. In contrast, more than one half of the respondents surveyed, who had received a vignette with a guilty plea scenario, supported an increment in sentence if the offender had gone to trial. There was more support for a discount in cases involving non-sexual violent offences versus sexual offences and adult versus child victims. Where a discount was supported, this most commonly was a reduction in the length of custodial sentence, with online respondents allocating the least generous discounts. Willingness to accept a sentencing discount was predicted by a range of variables including gender, education, punitive attitudes, offence type and offence seriousness. We conclude by considering the implications of our findings for sentencing law and practice.

“…This is not our position (see e.g. Bartels 2016). However, whether the focus is on wellbeing, desistance or decarceration, there can be no turning away from the lives of those we incarcerate.…”

Section: Prison Psychologistmentioning

confidence: 93%

Lessons in Flexibility: Introducing a Yoga Program in an Australian Prison

Hopkins

Int J for Crime, Justice & Social Democracy

Oxman

2019

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International research provides support for yoga as a wellbeing intervention in prison. Until recently, no systematic research had been undertaken in Australia to assess the effectiveness of a yoga program, or consider the challenges of implementation. In 2017, the authors, in partnership with Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Corrective Services and the Yoga Foundation, introduced a pilot yoga program at the Alexander Maconochie Centre in the ACT. This paper draws on comments from the prisoners who participated in the program and the yoga teacher, as well as the perspectives of a prison psychologist and the lead author, both of whom also participated in the program. The paper reflects on the lessons learnt from developing and delivering a prison yoga program and advocates for the expansion of such programs in Australian prisons.