Vic; Sentencing report urges more alternatives to jail

AAP General News (Australia)
08-12-2001
Vic; Sentencing report urges more alternatives to jail

MELBOURNE, Aug 12 AAP - A review of sentencing in Victoria conducted by a top criminologist,
and released today, has recommended widening existing alternatives to jailing offenders.

Experts on sentencing agreed that harsher jail sentences resulted in only small, if
any reductions in the crime rate, Melbourne University professor of criminology Arie Freiberg
said at the outset of the review.

"The object is to sentence smarter rather than longer," he said.

Punishment also had to be just, he said.

However, Prof Freiberg recognised that the Victorian state government had already promised
to increase the maximum penalty for drug trafficking to life imprisonment and double the
jail term for child stealing to 10 years.

In working on the review he noted that Victoria's prison population had increased by
50 per cent over the past decade.

He said that while saving money was not paramount, the example of the United States
where prisons cost $US40 billion ($A77.4 billion) a year, was a salutary thought in reviewing
sentencing.

Areas where change was likely as a result of the review was in suspended sentences
and community-based orders.

Prof Freiberg suggested abolishing suspended sentences and replacing them with a short
jail term followed by a period of supervised release.

He said the community feeling about suspended sentences was that they were a "soft option".

Community-based orders also came under scrutiny, with Prof Freiberg concluding that
they needed to be more clearly defined.

He suggested dividing the inclusive community-based order into separate orders, to
include a special order for personal development, for example.

One such order could ask that an offender take courses in adult literacy, vocational
training, parenting skills or various forms of counselling.

The review also suggested legislating to create alternatives to court-based systems.

Prof Freiberg said these systems of justice, which often involved the offender and
victim being brought in together and which partly worked by shaming the wrong-doer, had
become important parts of justice reform in Australia and overseas.

He said the time could have come for such systems to be put on a secure legal basis
by being made law.

The review also recommended sentencing practices be overseen by a Sentencing Advisory
Council, which could be made up of members of the public in addition to the usual judges
and lawyers.

Prof Freiberg's Sentencing Review discussion paper is open for public discussion until
October 12.

A final report with recommendations would be presented to the Attorney general later this year.

AAP ra/md/sb

KEYWORD: SENTENCING

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