Foreign crims facing visa cancellation use deportation ‘anxiety’ to plead for softer sentences
The visas of non-Australian citizens sentenced to 12 months or more in jail are automatically cancelled under a federal government crackdown but some foreign criminals are using this bizarre tactic to escape deportation.
Law & Order
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Foreign criminals are using the threat of being deported to plead for lighter sentences.
The Sentencing Advisory Council has found that Victoria is among four Australians states where courts consider deportation when sentencing an offender.
The visas of non-Australian citizens sentenced to 12 months or more in jail are automatically cancelled under a federal government crackdown introduced in 2014.
The council found that deportation could be considered a “mitigating factor” in sentencing as it could amount to “extra-curial” punishment and reduce the offender’s chance of parole.
The “anxiety” of being booted out of the country or missing parole could also make the offender’s stint behind bars “more burdensome”.
The threat of deportation was raised in one in every seven sentence appeal cases decided by the Victorian Court of Appeal last year.
In one case, a County Court judge “took into account in the respondent’s favour” that a Kiwi-born truck driver who filmed himself sexually abusing his step daughter would likely be deported.
“She (the judge) said that the respondent’s distress about the likely deportation will make his time in custody more onerous than other prisoners,” sentencing documents show.
The man’s four-year jail term was bumped up to at least seven years on appeal from the DPP.
Other cases where deportation was cited included a drug trafficker found with 659.5 grams of pure methamphetamine in a toiletry bag, a balaclava-clad armed robber and a Mauritius man who bashed his brother-in-law.
The federal government’s crackdown on foreign-born criminals sparked an immediate surge in visa cancellations, from 76 in 2013-14 to 580 the following year and 1277 in 2016-17.
More than 900 criminals has their visas scrapped in 2017/18.
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But the cancellations were overturned on appeal in 34 per cent of cases decided last year.
Sentencing Advisory Council chair Professor Arie Freiberg said the impact of deportations had become a “vexed” issue for courts, and was dealt with differently in different states.
“On the one hand, there might be the view that deportation is an added punishment for people,” Prof Freiberg said.
“On the other hand, there may be a view that people who have committed a crime and face deportation are not worthy of our sympathy.
“At the moment the situation is unsettled.”