A quick guide to sentencing

Introduction: outlines how Victorian courts (judges and magistrates) decide which sentence to impose on offenders. When sentencing offenders, a court decides what consequences offenders will face for what they have done. The focus of this guide is on Victorian courts. While some of what is described applies generally in other Australian states and territories, there are significant differences in the detail

Sourcing illegal drugs as a hidden older user: the ideal of ‘social supply’

Aims: At a time of growing awareness regarding the non-commercial supply of illegal drugs between friends, this article explores the significance of so-called ‘social supply’ for a group of ‘hidden’ users of illegal drugs aged 40 and over. Methodology: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 users of illegal drugs aged 40 and over who were not in contact with the criminal justice system or treatment agencies regarding their use. Participants were recruited using snowball sampling. Findings: Accessing drugs through the commercial market was considered as a less attractive proposition than social supply by the participants. The majority used only socially supplied drugs, with some engaging commercial dealers when socially supplied product was unavailable. A handful sourced drugs exclusively through the commercial market. Some were home growers of cannabis, and a small number had drifted into social supply themselves. Conclusions: Social supply was seen in a far more favourable light than commercial transactions by our participants, and acted as an ideal against which all other acts of sourcing were compared. Moreover, social supply was often an integral facet of the drug using experience and served to validate and enhance that experience. The relatively benign, non-predatory nature of the social supply engaged in by the participants lends support to calls for some reform of the offence of supply in UK law

Overcoming barriers in the criminal court system : Examining the challenges faced when interviewing legal stakeholders

This collection contributes to, advances and consolidates discussions of the range of methods and approaches in criminology through the presentation of diverse international case studies in which the authors reflect upon their experiences ..

Critical time Intervention for Severely mentally ill Prisoners (CrISP): a randomised controlled trial

Background The transition from prison to community is difficult for prisoners with mental illness. Critical time intervention (CTI) is designed to provide intensive support to meet health, social care and resettlement needs through close working between client and key worker pre, and up to 6 weeks post, release. Objectives To establish whether or not CTI is effective in (1) improving engagement of discharged male prisoners who have mental illness with community mental health teams (CMHTs) and (2) providing practical support with housing, finance and re-establishing social networks. Trial design A multicentre, parallel-group randomised controlled trial, with follow-up at 6 weeks and at 6 and 12 months. A subset of prisoners and case managers participated in a complementary qualitative study. Setting Eight English prisons. Participants One hundred and fifty adult male prisoners, convicted or remanded, cared for by mental health in-reach teams and diagnosed with severe mental illness, with a discharge date within 6 months of the point of recruitment. Intervention Participants were randomised to either the intervention or the control (treatment as usual). The intervention group was assigned a case manager who assessed mental and physical health before and following release, made appropriate links to health, housing and financial services and supported the re-establishment of family/peer contact. Outcome The primary outcome measure was engagement with a CMHT 6 weeks post discharge. Secondary outcomes included contact with mental health services at 6 and 12 months. A health economic evaluation was undertaken using service contact at the follow-up time points. We were unable to assess the intervention’s effect on reoffending and longer-term health-care use because of study delays. Results One hundred and fifty prisoners were recruited: 72 were randomised to the intervention and 78 were randomised to the control. Engagement with teams at 6 weeks was 53% for the intervention group compared with 27% for the control group [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.13% to 0.78%; p = 0.012]. At 6 months’ follow-up, intervention participants showed continued increase in engagement with teams compared with control participants (95% CI 0.12% to 0.89%; p = 0.029); there were no significant differences at 12 months. Increased engagement resulted in higher levels of service use and costs for the intervention than for the control. Qualitative data showed the intervention group reporting better continuity of care and improved access to services. Conclusion The intervention significantly improved contact with services at 6 weeks, although at a higher cost than the control. This is important as, in the days and weeks following release, recently released individuals are at a particularly high risk of suicide and drug overdose. Further research is required to establish how teams can better maintain contact with clients when the intervention ends. Future work Further studies are indicated for groups with different needs, for example women, young prisoners and those in police custody, and at other transition points, for example following arrest and short-term custody, and at points of transition between different mental health services. Trial registration Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN98067793. Funding This project was funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Services and Delivery Research programme and will be published in full in Health Services and Delivery Research; Vol. 5, No. 8. See the NIHR Journals Library website for further project information

Reoffending following sentence in Victoria: a statistical overview

Examines reoffending patterns for 63,366 people sentenced in Victorian criminal courts between July 2004 and June 2014. Summary Reducing reoffending following the imposition of a sentence is one of the primary aims of sentencing and of the criminal justice system generally. However, widely used measures of reoffending in Victoria are of limited value in assessing the effectiveness of sentencing because they: focus on a group of people that represents a small proportion of all people sentenced; limit the type of event that counts as reoffending; and use a relatively short follow-up period. This study proposes a measure of reoffending that overcomes some of these limitations. The measure used here focuses on offenders who receive any sentence type on multiple occasions over a nine-year period. Using this measure, the present study provides an overview of reoffending following sentence in Victoria. &nbsp

Guilty pleas in the higher courts: rates, timing, and discounts

Most people sentenced in the County Court and the Supreme Court of Victoria plead guilty, and their guilty plea results in a reduced sentence, according to this report. Executive summary This report examines the rate and timing of guilty pleas, and their effect on sentence, in the Supreme Court of Victoria and the County Court of Victoria (‘the higher courts’) from July 2009 to June 2014.   The study includes a total of 9,618 cases and 35,902 charges sentenced in the higher courts during the reference period (2009–10 to 2013–14).   Since 2008, section 6AAA of the Victorian Sentencing Act 1991 has required sentencing judges (in certain circumstances) to state the sentence that they would have imposed if the offender had not pleaded guilty. Subtracting the actual sentence from this notional undiscounted sentence reveals the stated reduction in sentence, or ‘discount’ for the guilty plea.   As well as making the discounts more transparent to the parties in the case, the very high compliance with section 6AAA in the higher courts has enabled extensive data collection on plea-based sentence discounts for the first time in Victoria. During the reference period (2009–10 to 2013–14), there were over 7,000 higher court cases with sufficient detail in the 6AAA  statement to analyse the reductions awarded for guilty pleas. A unique feature of these data is that the information about the plea-based reduction is sourced directly from the sentencing judges

Major driving offences: current sentencing practices

Examines sentencing in Victorian courts over the seven years to July 2013 for culpable driving causing death, dangerous driving causing death, negligently causing serious injury (where driving related), and dangerous driving causing serious injury. Main findings This report examines current sentencing practices between 2006–07 and 2012–13 (the ‘reference period’) for four major driving offences (collectively, the ‘reference offences’) : culpable driving causing death (‘culpable driving’); dangerous driving causing death;  negligently causing serious injury (where driving related);  dangerous driving causing serious injury. The report presents high-level sentencing outcomes at both the charge and the case level for each of the reference offences. Additionally, it examines sentencing outcomes for dangerous driving causing death and negligently causing serious injury for the periods before and after increases to the maximum penalties for those offences