Media Release
For immediate release 9:00 a.m. (AEST) Tuesday 26 September 2017
Breaching the conditions of bail and sentencing orders accounted for 10% of all charges sentenced in Victorian courts in 2015–16, a new Sentencing Advisory Council report has found.
The Council studied the number of proven charges and sentencing outcomes for offences that arose from breaches of conditions placed on offenders suspected or convicted of a substantive offence, for the five years to 30 June 2016.
Charges for these offences – termed ‘secondary offences’ because they arise secondarily to a person’s involvement in the criminal justice system – more than doubled over the five years, with nearly 32,000 charges sentenced in Victorian courts in 2015–16.
In total, there were 100,860 secondary offences sentenced in the five years to 30 June 2016. Of these, the majority (70%) were bail-related offences, such as failing to attend court when required. The remaining offences were almost all related to breaches of sentencing orders, such as contravening a community correction order (25%) and breaches of conditions imposed on sex offenders, such as failing to maintain current address details (5%). A very small percentage were related to breaches of parole conditions, such as leaving Victoria without permission (0.2%).
The significant increase in secondary offences is largely due to the introduction in December 2013 of two new bail-related offences: contravening a conduct condition of bail and committing an indictable offence while on bail.
The most common sentencing outcomes for all secondary offences in adult courts were fines (21%), community correction orders (20%) and imprisonment (19%). However, most of those imprisonment sentences for secondary offences (84%) were part of an aggregate sentence (a single penalty imposed by the court for multiple offences), making it impossible to determine what effect the secondary offence charge had on the ultimate sentence. Further, for charges that received a non-aggregate term of imprisonment, almost all of them (95%) were ordered to be served wholly concurrently (at the same time) on terms of imprisonment imposed on other offences.
Quotes Attributable to Council Chair Professor Arie Freiberg
‘This report shines a light on a previously unexplored area. It looks at offences that criminalise breaching behaviours, often where the justice system already has a number of responses available, such as cancellation of bail or parole.’
‘Offences that arise from breaching conditions are responsible for a significant and growing proportion of charges sentenced in Victoria.’
‘In examining these offences as a group for the first time, this report highlights their contribution to the workload of courts and others in the criminal justice system, and may assist discussion around the purpose and effectiveness of these offences’.
What Is a Secondary Offence?
A secondary offence is a crime that occurs when someone suspected or convicted of a criminal offence, who is living in the community while subject to special conditions, breaches one or more of these conditions (for example, by not complying with a curfew condition of bail, or by failing to report annually as a convicted sex offender). Secondary offences fall into one of four categories: offences related to bail, offences related to a sentencing order, offences related to parole and offences that apply to people suspected or convicted of a registrable sex offence.
