Sentencing Advisory Council report reveals 643% increase in time served sentences
The number of criminals walking free after serving their jail time on remand has surged 643 per cent, with experts fearing many are not being supervised or adequately rehabilitated on their release.
Police & Courts
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One in five criminals are walking free from court after serving their jail time while on remand — a stunning 643 per cent increase in just six years.
Tough bail policies and clogged courts and prisons are fuelling the trend, prompting warnings about nearly 1000 prisoners a year now being released without adequate rehabilitation or supervision.
A Sentencing Advisory Council report, to be released today (TUESDAY), shows Victoria’s prison population has soared from 6113 in 2014 to 8102 last year, more than a third of whom were on remand.
In total, 92 per cent of that increase has come from people awaiting trial behind bars, and only 155 of those extra prisoners had actually been sentenced to jail.
In 2018, 1828 offenders received time-served sentences — meaning they only spent time behind bars on remand — compared to just 246 in 2012.
Of those, 96 per cent had been in custody for less than six months, and only half received a community corrections order upon release.
Sentencing Advisory Council chair Professor Arie Freiberg said: “One in 10 prison sentences in Victoria now involve immediate release and no further supervision. There are serious questions about what these sentences can achieve, and what effect they have on community safety.”
The report warned that those held on remand did not have access “to targeted programs addressing any underlying issues that may have contributed to their offending”.
It said offenders released without community corrections orders had “almost no post-release supervision or reintegration assistance”, or mental health, substance abuse and housing help.
Those released straight from remand usually have less than a week to organise housing and transport and make contact with employment and support services.
“Time served prison sentences are therefore less capable than most other orders of achieving the sentencing purposes of rehabilitation and protecting community from future offending,” the report said.
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The Sentencing Advisory Council also questioned whether “constrained resources and growing demand” were increasingly forcing judges to sentence offenders who had “already been punished” by serving time on remand.
It said the figures showed Victoria’s justice system had become “increasingly punitive”.
“Contrary to the prevailing perception in the community that courts are ‘soft on crime’, the report finds that more people are in jail, fewer people are being bailed, and more people are being sentenced to prison than ever before,” Professor Freiberg said.