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Date: April 30, 2024 Tue

Time: 2:09 am

Results for conditional discharge

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Author: Thorburn, Hamish

Title: Trends in conditional discharges in NSW Local Courts: 2004-2015

Summary: Courts are increasingly choosing to give offenders a section 10(1)b bond rather than fine them according to new research by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR). A 10(1)b bond is one of the least severe penalties a court can impose on an offender. Offenders given a section 10(1)b bond are released without conviction on condition that they enter into a good behaviour bond. Breach of a bond may result in resentencing for the original offence. BOCSAR examined the penalties imposed by the NSW Local Courts between January 2004 and September 2015 for assault, drug, weapons, property damage and traffic offences. These offences account for around 80 per cent of all section 10(1)b bonds. Between January 2004 and September 2015, the percentage of offenders in these categories receiving a section 10(1)b bond rose from 15.2 per cent to 23.6 per cent. Over the same period the proportion of fines being imposed by the Local Court for the same offences fell from 66 per cent to 55.9 per cent; almost perfectly matching the increase in the use of section 10(1)b bonds. The growth in the use of section 10(1)b bonds remained significant even after controlling for changes in offender characteristics such as Indigenous status, gender, level of disadvantage, age, remoteness of residence, number of concurrent offences and prior criminal record.

Details: Sydney: New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, 2016. 16p.

Source: Internet Resource: Contemporary Issues in Crime and Justice, no. 196: Accessed September 15, 2016 at: http://www.bocsar.nsw.gov.au/Documents/CJB/Report-2016-Trends-in-conditional-discharges-cjb196.pdf

Year: 2016

Country: Australia

URL: http://www.bocsar.nsw.gov.au/Documents/CJB/Report-2016-Trends-in-conditional-discharges-cjb196.pdf

Shelf Number: 147882

Keywords:
Alternatives to Incarcerations
Conditional Discharge
Criminal Courts
Drug Offenders
Sentencing