Date of Publication
29 June 2023
The Sentencing Advisory Council today released a new set of Snapshots for six offences sentenced in the County and Supreme Courts of Victoria.
The offences in the latest release are:
- murder
- manslaughter
- culpable driving causing death
- arson
- obtaining property by deception
- obtaining a financial advantage by deception.
The new Snapshots highlight sentencing trends in the five years to 30 June 2021. They present data on the type and length of sentences imposed for the principal offence (the most serious offence in a case).
Some key features of the data on homicide offences include:
- the average total effective sentence for murder was lower in 2020–21 and 2021–22 compared to previous years, most likely due to the mitigatory effect of COVID-19, especially the enhanced utilitarian value of guilty pleas (as outlined in Worboyes v The Queen [2021] VSCA 169)
- the average total effective sentence length for manslaughter was relatively stable (between 7.5 years and 9.5 years), which could be because the maximum penalty for manslaughter was increased to 25 years (July 2020) at the same time that COVID-19 had a significant mitigatory effect on sentences, balancing out the effect of both
- the average total effective sentence length for culpable driving causing death has continued a relatively stable 20-year upward trend for this offence, from about 5 years in 2001 to 10 years in 2021.
The data on deception offences reveals:
- the most common sentence types for obtaining a financial advantage by deception were imprisonment (61%), community correction orders (27%) and wholly suspended sentences (10%), the last of which remain available for offences committed prior to 2014
- similarly, the most common sentence types for obtaining property by deception were also imprisonment (70%), community correction orders (22%) and wholly suspended sentences (5%).
The new Sentencing Snapshots are available for download from our website.
