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Abolition of Suspended Sentences by 2009

24 May 2006

The Sentencing Advisory Council has recommended the phasing-out of suspended sentences by 2009 and the phasing-in of a new range of sentencing orders.

In its Final Report on Suspended Sentences released today, the Council recommends the immediate restriction of the ability to use suspended sentences for serious violent and sexual offences.

The report also recommends the removal of suspended sentences altogether by 2009 when the new sentencing orders are in operation.

Chair of the Council, Professor Arie Freiberg, said "The extensive consultation process we undertook confirms that few issues have created such strong divisions within the community as suspended sentences."

"We remain of the view that suspended sentences are flawed and the way in which they have been used has undermined community confidence in sentencing," he said.

"Introducing conditional suspended sentences would only exacerbate the problem. The better option is to replace existing orders with a new range of conditional sentencing orders that make sense to the community."

"We recognise that this would mean a major change to the current sentencing regime. As this clearly cannot be achieved overnight the Council has recommended a staged reform process," Professor Freiberg said.

The Council's report makes three key recommendations concerning the way in which suspended sentences would be restricted prior to 2009. These are:

1. Including guidelines in the legislation about factors that might make a suspended sentence inappropriate
   
2. Only allowing the use of suspended sentences for serious violent and sexual offences in exceptional cases
3. Retaining the requirement that an offender must serve the suspended goal term where the suspended sentence has been breached, unless there are exceptional circumstances.

The report recommends that young offenders who breach a suspended sentence order should be able to serve the sentence in youth detention rather than in an adult prison.

The Sentencing Advisory Council will release a second part of its Final Report later in 2006. This part will detail other changes to intermediate sentencing orders.