Media Release
Embargoed until 12:00 a.m. (AEST) Thursday 30 June 2016
The abolition of suspended sentences has been a key driver of the increased use of community correction orders (CCOs) by Victorian courts, according to a new report. But a Court of Appeal decision that led to the increased use of CCOs has not resulted in fewer people being sent to prison, the Sentencing Advisory Council report has found.
The Council’s report, Community Correction Orders: Third Monitoring Report (Post-Guideline Judgment), examined sentencing practices by Victoria’s adult courts in 2015. Between 2014 and 2015, there were substantial increases in the number of CCOs imposed in Victorian adult courts. In 2015, the number of offenders who received a CCO as a principal sentence (i.e. the most severe sentence imposed on a charge in a case) increased by 36% (to 10,508) in the Magistrates’ Court and by 15% (to 393) in the County and Supreme Courts.
CCOs also became longer and CCO conditions became more intensive.
The Council found that many of the additional CCOs were used in place of suspended sentences, which were abolished in the Magistrates’ Court for offences committed on or after September 2014. The percentage of offenders sentenced in the Magistrates’ Court that received a suspended sentence declined from 5.2% to 1.3% by the December quarter of 2015.
A CCO places greater demands on the offender than the old suspended sentence, which had only one condition: that the offender did not reoffend. In 2015, 85.6 % of CCOs imposed in the County and Supreme Courts required the offender to perform unpaid community work, while 87.9% included an 'assessment and treatment' condition aimed at addressing the causes of the offending behaviour.
The guideline judgment issued by the Court of Appeal in Boulton v The Queen on 22 December 2014, coupled with legislative change, led to an increase in the use of CCOs imposed in combination with imprisonment and served after the prison component of the sentence had ended. Between 2014 and 2015, the number of imprisonment sentences combined with CCOs increased by 100% (to 2,028) in the Magistrates’ Court, and by 370% (to 356) in the County and Supreme Courts.
The Council found that the guideline judgment resulted in only a temporary shift away from imprisonment towards the CCO as a sentence in its own right. Between the December quarter of 2014 and the March quarter of 2015, the percentage of offenders sentenced to imprisonment by the County and Supreme Courts declined from 68.7% to 58.9%. However, by the December quarter of 2015, this trend had reversed and the percentage of offenders had climbed to 73.1%.
The Council’s Deputy Chair, Lisa Ward, said courts have been using CCOs in place of the now discontinued suspended sentences. 'Offenders who would previously have been released without supervision under a suspended sentence of imprisonment are now being assessed and treated, and giving back to the community through unpaid community work', Ms Ward said.
'The Boulton decision by the Court of Appeal, coupled with legislative change, has resulted in sentencing courts combining more CCOs with sentences of imprisonment. There is very little evidence of the CCO, as a sentence in its own right, being used to replace imprisonment.'
