risks cannot be justified on the current evidence. SCF approaches also raise a range of procedural fairness and human rights issues and have the potential to disproportionately affect particular groups in Victoria, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. In addition, there are serious concerns about the capacity of the current criminal justice system to accommodate an SCF approach. In light of its research and consultation, the Council makes the following recommendation: Recommendation 1 There is insufficient evidence that a ‘swift, certain and fair’ approach to sentencing and sentence management of family violence offenders would be effective or appropriate in Victoria, and such an approach should not be implemented. New ‘family violence offender compliance order’ considered and dismissed The Council’s SCF discussion paper raised the possibility of a new sentencing order, the ‘family violence offender compliance order’. This order was to be directed at family violence offenders who would otherwise have served a term of imprisonment, and it would enable the possibility of short terms of imprisonment as a penalty for contravention of conditions of the order. The family violence offender compliance order was modelled on the drug treatment order and conceived as comprising two parts: a custodial component of relatively short length (for example, a period of up to three months) that would be unactivated, in a similar manner to the unactivated custodial component of the drug treatment order; and a community component with conditions based on the existing conditions of a CCO, including such conditions as requiring the offender to attend an MBCP and drug and/or alcohol treatment. The Council tested this proposal in consultation with a range of stakeholders. While some stakeholders were supportive of such an order for family violence offenders, the majority were not.
risks cannot be justified on the current evidence. SCF approaches also raise a range of procedural fairness and human rights issues and have the potential to disproportionately affect particular groups in Victoria, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. In addition, there are serious concerns about the capacity of the current criminal justice system to accommodate an SCF approach. In light of its research and consultation, the Council makes the following recommendation: Recommendation 1 There is insufficient evidence that a ‘swift, certain and fair’ approach to sentencing and sentence management of family violence offenders would be effective or appropriate in Victoria, and such an approach should not be implemented. New ‘family violence offender compliance order’ considered and dismissed The Council’s SCF discussion paper raised the possibility of a new sentencing order, the ‘family violence offender compliance order’. This order was to be directed at family violence offenders who would otherwise have served a term of imprisonment, and it would enable the possibility of short terms of imprisonment as a penalty for contravention of conditions of the order. The family violence offender compliance order was modelled on the drug treatment order and conceived as comprising two parts: a custodial component of relatively short length (for example, a period of up to three months) that would be unactivated, in a similar manner to the unactivated custodial component of the drug treatment order; and a community component with conditions based on the existing conditions of a CCO, including such conditions as requiring the offender to attend an MBCP and drug and/or alcohol treatment. The Council tested this proposal in consultation with a range of stakeholders. While some stakeholders were supportive of such an order for family violence offenders, the majority were not.
Swift_Certain_Fair_Approaches_Sentencing_Family_Violence_Offenders_Report.docx