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...

This report argues that the Commonwealth has failed to work with the Northern Territory to provide accommodation and other support services, other than accommodation in a maximum security prison, for people with intellectual disabilities who are unfit to plead to criminal charges.

Using both quantitative and qualitative analyses of judges’ sentencing remarks, this paper examines community correction orders imposed by Victorian higher courts in the 18 months to June 2013.

Executive summary: This report has been prepared to assist the courts and those working in the criminal justice system to understand the operation of baseline medians as set out in the Sentencing Amendment (Baseline Sentences) Act 2014 (Vic) (‘the Act’) and some of the implications for current sentencing practices. The Act provides that the baseline...

Since the conclusion of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (RCIADIC) in 1991 there has been a significant rise in the prison population of Indigenous peoples in Australia. There has been an even sharper rise in the number of Indigenous peoples in custody. While all Indigenous peoples are over-represented in the Australian prison...