Having driven into a dead end on bail, the government is now desperately in reverse

The road to good intentions is littered with land mines, and a perfect example is the state’s bail laws.

Premier Jacinta Allan announced on Wednesday the latest changes she says will make Victoria’s bail laws the toughest in the country.

Police Minister Anthony Carbines, Premier Jacinta Allan and Attorney-General Sonya Kilkenny announced changes to Victoria’s bail laws.Credit: AAPIMAGE

They may well be the toughest, but are they the best?

Make no mistake – this is a political solution to a justice problem as the government knows it is haemorrhaging votes on law and order.

Attorney-General Sonya Kilkenny and Police Minister Anthony Carbines were last month tasked with conducting a review. In three weeks, two elected politicians have apparently been able to come up with the Magna Carta on bail – a problem that has festered for years.

After a marathon cabinet meeting, it will now be rushed into parliament and turned into law. The premier says she has listened to the concerns of the public.

Supreme Court judge Paul Coghlan.Credit: The Age

The first unintended consequence of relaxing bail laws in the first place came from a noble intent.

Victoria’s Indigenous population is wickedly over-represented in our prison population and several reports have recommended the need for reform due to deaths in custody.

The logic goes like this: low-level (but serial) Indigenous offenders were being locked up for breaching bail conditions when their actual criminal actions were unlikely to ever draw a custodial sentence.

But by lowering the bail bar for 1 per cent of the population, it meant gangs of young serial home invaders were released after being charged multiple times.

Now the government, having driven into a dead end, is desperately in reverse.

Former chief commissioner Shane Patton lobbied hard behind the scenes for change but was rebuffed at every turn. (The government has now also announced a ban on machete sales. When police made a presentation to the Justice Department on knife crimes, some officials present made official complaints that the vision was too graphic.)

The shame is that the answer to the bail bungles was not in half-baked reviews or media-managed press conferences but sitting in the parliament archives.

Nearly 10 years ago, the government asked Supreme Court judge and former director of public prosecutions Paul Coghlan, KC, to review the bail laws.

His two-volume report, tabled in 2017, was comprehensive and practical. And guess what?

Not one of his recommendations was accepted.

He said low-level crimes were clogging the system, with suspects not turning up in court. More than 60,000 warrants were being issued every year to find no-show offenders. When they were finally caught up with, after multiple chances, they were remanded in custody.

Instead, Coghlan said the cases should be heard without the accused present and the offender fined – saving thousands of court and police hours and keeping non-violent, nuisance offenders out of jail.

He also recommended “more emphasis should be placed on offending whilst on bail, including making it more difficult for further bails to be granted.”

Instead, the government removed the offence of committing crime while on bail, with disastrous consequences. They are now bringing it back, but not before hundreds of families have had their houses invaded by repeat offenders.

While the changes to bail laws may be well intentioned, they miss the point.

There are four pillars of justice: an accused can only be convicted when the evidence proves the case beyond reasonable doubt; justice delayed is justice denied; the punishment should deter others; and a prisoner should be offered avenues to reform.

Delays in getting cases to trial is one of the root causes of the bail problem, and there is no stomach for meaningful reform.

Now that Allan has bitten the bullet on bail, the government has a massive chance to produce a model in juvenile justice that will be the template to rebuilding the criminal justice system.

The cases these kids are involved in are open and shut – offenders caught in stolen cars, DNA and CCTV footage available.

Remand the suspects in custody, but don’t let them rot there for a year waiting for a trial. Triage the most important cases as hospital emergency rooms do as a matter of course. As it stands, the court system is an overly ambitious snake trying to swallow a water buffalo.

Offer incentives to plead guilty or have the trial heard within eight weeks. When they are convicted, offer offenders incentives to reform, and offer employers tax breaks to give ex-inmates a chance.

Now that’s real reform. And that is why it won’t happen.

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