Prelims

Half Title Page

Rethinking Community Sanctions

Endorsement

Praise for Rethinking Community Sanctions

What do community sanctions look like in Australia in the 21st century? What can be done to realise their progressive potential and minimise their insidious effects? This lively, theoretically informed, empirically grounded book, written by a group of scholars with a deep knowledge of Australia’s penal system, opens up new ways of thinking about a form of sanctioning that is widely used but little understood.

David Garland, New York University, USA

Drawing on the leading international literature on punishment, and further contributing to it, Rethinking Community Sanctions provides the first book-length study of community sanctions in Australia that is both comprehensive in scope and critical in nature. It redresses the profound imbalance between the critical attention devoted to the prison as a sanction and that directed at the far more common reliance on punishment and surveillance in the community, and it carefully elucidates the connections between the two. It does so with particular reference to those most vulnerable to being ensnared in the carceral dragnet. And it offers a positive alternative vision for the future of community sanctions. As much as academics should be drawn to this book, so too should lawyers, criminal justice practitioners and politicians who care about the current trajectory of the penal system.

Russell Hogg, Honorary Professor, Centre for Crime, Law and Justice, Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales, Australia

This brilliant book offers the first critical analysis of community sanctions in contemporary Australia – but its contribution goes much further than that. It is the first study anywhere to properly develop a decolonising perspective on this topic. Both by putting the present-day injustices in their proper historical context and by centering three populations who are too often marginalised in and by penal policy, practice and scholarship (indigenous people, women and people with mental health disorders and/or cognitive disabilities), this book represents a major advance in the study of probation and parole, but also in how we understand relationships between punishment, community and society more generally. Everyone who cares about those relationships should read it, digest it and use it.

Fergus McNeill, Professor of Criminology and Social Work, University of Glasgow, UK

A compelling, comprehensive conceptual and empirical analysis of the social, political and legal nuances of community correctional practices in Australia, this book shows how the risk episteme underpinning community sanctions is limited and has differential effects on women, people with disabilities and racialised and Indigenous populations. The authors challenge us to reflect on the administrative and operational limits of these sanctions, binaries of community/custody, welfarist/risk and harsh/‘soft’ penalties. Readers are asked to scrutinise how technological, sociopolitical and populist rationalities reconfigure supervision, while simultaneously remaining hopeful about the potential of ‘community’ sanctions.

Kelly Hannah-Moffat, Centre of Criminology and Sociolegal Studies, University of Toronto, Canada

Title Page

Rethinking Community Sanctions: Social Justice and Penal Control

by

Julie Stubbs

UNSW Sydney, Australia

Sophie Russell

University of Technology Sydney, Australia

Eileen Baldry

UNSW Sydney, Australia

David Brown

UNSW Sydney, Australia

Chris Cunneen

University of Technology Sydney, Australia

And

Melanie Schwartz

UNSW Sydney, Australia

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

Copyright Page

Emerald Publishing Limited

Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK

First edition 2023

Copyright © 2023 Julie Stubbs, Sophie Russell, Eileen Baldry, David Brown, Chris Cunneen and Melanie Schwartz.

Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-80117-641-5 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-80117-640-8 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-80117-642-2 (Epub)

List of Figures and Tables

List of Abbreviations

ABS

Australian Bureau of Statistics

ACCO

Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisation

ACT

Australian Capital Territory

AJA

Aboriginal Justice Agreements

ALRC

Australian Law Reform Commission

AOD

Alcohol and Other Drug

APB

Adult Parole Board (Victoria)

ARC

Assessment Referral Court

BOCSAR

Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (NSW)

CBO

Community-Based Order (NT)

CBT

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

CCO

Community Correction Order

CCS

Community Correctional Services (Victoria)

CCt.O

Community Custody Order (NT)

CCTO

Combined Custody and Treatment Order

CIA

Community Impact Assessment

CISP

Court Integrated Services Program

CJP

Community Justice Program

COMMIT

Compliance Management or Incarceration in the Territory

CREDIT

Court Referral of Eligible Defendants into Treatment

CRO

Conditional Release Order

CSNSW

Corrective Services NSW

CWO

Community Work Order

DRC

Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People With Disability

EBP

Evidence-Based Policy and Practice

EOMS

Extra Offender Management Services

EQUIPS

Explore, Question, Understand, Investigate, Practice, Plan and Succeed

ESO

Extended Supervision Order

GLM

Good Lives Model

HMIP

Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Probation

HOPE

Hawaii's Opportunity Probation With Enforcement

ICCO

Intensive Community Correction Order (NT)

ICO

Intensive Correction Order (NSW)

JR

Justice Reinvestment

LGA

Local Government Area

LSI-R

Level of Service Inventory – Revised

LSI-R:SV

Level of Service Inventory – Revised: Screening Version

MACNI

Multiple and Complex Needs Initiative

MERIT

Magistrates Early Referral into Treatment

MHD&CD

Mental Health Disorders and Cognitive Disabilities

NAAJA

North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency

NGO

Non-Governmental Organisation

NOMS

National Offender Management Service

NPP

Non-parole Period

NSW

New South Wales

NSWLRC

New South Wales Law Reform Commission

NSWSPA

NSW State Parole Authority

NT LRC

NT Law Reform Committee

NT

The Northern Territory

OMF

Offender Management Framework

PACCOA

Probation and Community Corrections Officers' Association of Australia

PGI

Practice Guide for Intervention (NSW)

PSA

Post Sentence Authority (Victoria)

Qld

Queensland

RCADIC

Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody

RCPDCNT

Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory

RNR

Risk-Need-Responsivity

SA

South Australia

SCAV

Sentencing Advisory Council Victoria

Tas

Tasmania

TJ

Therapeutic Jurisprudence

UK

United Kingdom

Vic

Victoria

VISAT

Victorian Initial Screening Assessment Tool

WA

Western Australia

WACC

Western Australia Community Corrections

WDO

Work and Development Order

About the Authors

Julie Stubbs was Professor and founding co-Director of the Centre for Crime, Law and Justice at the Faculty of Law and Justice, UNSW Sydney, where she is now an Honorary Professor. She was previously Professor and Director of the Institute of Criminology at the Faculty of Law, University of Sydney. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia. Her research interests include women and criminal justice, legal responses to gendered violence, homicide, justice reinvestment and bail. Her books include: Justice Reinvestment: Winding Back Imprisonment (co-authored with Brown et al., 2016); Australian Violence: Crime, Criminal Justice and Beyond (co-edited with Tomsen, 2016); Gender, Race and International Relations: Violence against Filipino Women in Australia (co-authored with Cunneen, 1997) and Women, Male Violence and the Law (edited, 1994).

Sophie Russell is undertaking doctoral research at the University of Technology Sydney. She has undertaken research, policy and advocacy in community sector agencies and previously worked at the Institute of Criminology at the University of Sydney, and as Research Associate at the Faculty of Law and Justice, UNSW Sydney, and at Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research at the University of Technology Sydney UTS. She is a volunteer with a community sector organisation that supports people on release from prison. Her recent publications include ‘Rehabilitation and Beyond in Settler Colonial Australia: Current and Future Directions in Policy and Practice’ (Russell, Beaufils, & Cunneen, 2022, in Vanstone & Priestley (Eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Global Rehabilitation in Criminal Justice, pp. 33–52) and Youth Justice and Penality in Comparative Context (with Goldson et al., 2021).

Eileen Baldry AO FASSA FRSN is Professor of Criminology at UNSW Sydney. She was appointed the first female Deputy Vice-Chancellor at UNSW in 2017. Professor Baldry taught Social Policy, Social Development and Criminology over the past 30 years. Her research and publications focus on social justice and include mental health and cognitive disability in the criminal legal systems; criminalised women, Indigenous women and youth; education, training and employment for prisoners; homelessness and transition from prison; community development and social housing; and disability services. Professor Baldry has been and is a Chief Investigator on numerous grants since 1993, contributes to Commissions and Inquiries and has published over 150 peer-reviewed books, articles and reports. In 2021 she was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia for ‘distinguished service to tertiary education, to criminology and social welfare policy, and as an advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion’.

David Brown is Emeritus Professor at the University of NSW, Sydney, where he taught Criminal Law, Criminal Justice, Crime Prevention, Community Corrections and Penology courses from 1974 to 2008. He is lead co-author of Criminal Laws, now in its 7th edition (2020), the leading student teaching text in criminal law in universities in NSW. He is widely published across the broad areas of criminal law, criminal justice, criminology and penology, both in Australia and internationally. His co-authored or co-edited books include: Youth Justice and Penality in Comparative Context (with Goldson et al., 2021); Justice Reinvestment: Winding Back Imprisonment (Brown et al., 2016); Penal Culture and Hyperincarceration (with Cunneen et al., 2013); The New Punitiveness (with Pratt et al., 2005); Prisoners as Citizens (with Wilkie, 2002); Rethinking Law and Order (with Hogg, 1998) and The Prison Struggle (with Zdenkowski, 1982). He served as a Part-Time NSW Law Reform Commissioner on the Bail reference (2011–2012).

Chris Cunneen is Professor of Criminology at Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research at the University of Technology Sydney. He also holds honorary professorial positions at UNSW Sydney and the Cairns Institute, James Cook University. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia and a Fellow of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology. He has particular interests in Indigenous legal issues and access to justice, racialisation and criminalisation, youth justice, justice reinvestment and penality. His recent books include Defund the Police. An International Insurrection (2023), Youth Justice and Penality in Comparative Context, (with Goldson et al., 2021), Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Relations (with Behrendt et al., 2019) and Indigenous Criminology (with Tauri, 2016).

Melanie Schwartz is an Associate Professor and Deputy Dean (Education) at the Faculty of Law and Justice, UNSW Sydney. She teaches and researches in the areas of criminal justice and access to justice, with a particular interest in Indigenous justice issues. Her co-authored books include Youth Justice and Penality in Comparative Context (with Goldson et al., 2021); Criminal Laws (with Brown et al., 2015, 2020); Justice Reinvestment: Winding Back Imprisonment (with Brown et al., 2016) and Penal Culture and Hyperincarceration (with Cunneen et al., 2013).

Acknowledgements

Working toward this book in the context of a global pandemic has entailed personal and professional challenges. It also has given added emphasis to concerns about care and support, connection to friends, family and communities, safety and wellbeing, matters that are salient to our analysis of community sanctions.

We are very appreciative of the contributions by the many organisations that facilitated interviews and provided data and documents, and by people who agreed to be interviewed for our research. Across all sectors, busy people made time for us; those who participated expressed a deep concern to improve outcomes for people subjected to community sanctions. We especially thank Corrections Victoria, the Koori Justice Unit and the Victorian Department of Justice and Regulation for approving our application to carry out research and for their assistance.

Our work benefited from excellent research assistance provided by Genevieve Wilks, Gabi Bloom, William Jackson, Jack McNally and Ayse Selcuk. Our workshop was organised and supported by Gabi Bloom along with Ryan Barratt, Hayley Barrington, Romy Gelber and Kate Lloyd. Thank you to all.

We also thank our respective universities and our colleagues in the Faculty of Law and Justice at UNSW, Sydney, and the Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research at the University of Technology Sydney. We are fortunate to work within contexts and among colleagues that foster and support research directed toward social justice.

We gratefully acknowledge that this project was made possible by funding from the Australian Research Council (grant DP170100893) and workshop funding from the Faculty of Law and Justice, UNSW Sydney.

Julie Stubbs, Sophie Russell, Eileen Baldry, David Brown, Chris Cunneen and Melanie Schwartz

Sydney, January 2023