CRIMINAL DEFENCE LAWYERS

Archive for July, 2010

Community Service Orders (CSOs) have become an increasingly popular sentencing option in New South Wales courts, as they obligate offenders to perform work in the community as an alternative to imposing stricter judicial remedies or sanctions. Research by the Australian Institute of Criminology has indicated that community sentencing has a much higher likelihood of rehabilitating criminal offenders, because it punishes them through restrictions on their time and liberty, as well as encouraging them to reform their behaviour. Community Service Orders have also proven to be cost-effective for the authorities, as they are relatively cheap to administer in contrast to imprisonment, while simultaneously enabling offenders to make reparations for harm committed in the local community. Read the rest of this entry »

Suspended sentences were reintroduced into the New South Wales legal system in 2000, in order to provide judges with more flexibility during the sentencing process. In introducing the bill, then Attorney General of NSW, Robert John Debus stated that “The primary purpose of suspended sentences is to denote the seriousness of the offence and the consequences of re-offending, whilst at the same time providing [offenders] an opportunity, by good behaviour, to avoid the consequences.” Suspended sentences allow judges and magistrates to impose a sentence of imprisonment on a convicted offender to convey the severity of the offence, but at the same time encourage their rehabilitation. Research by the Australian Institute of Criminology found that suspended sentences were an effective method of deterring and denunciating offenders, with offenders on a wholly suspended sentence having lower reconviction rates than those facing  full-time imprisonment or partially suspended sentences. However, the paper also found that the failure to consistently prosecute breaches of suspended sentences reduced their effectiveness at deterrence, as well as potentially undermining the sentencing option’s legitimacy in the eyes of the wider community. Read the rest of this entry »