SA Begins Extended Supervision Order Scheme For High Risk Offenders

Thursday 28 January 2016 @ 11.58 a.m. | Crime

New South Australian laws allowing for the extended supervision of high risk offenders came into effect on January 25.  The Criminal Law (High Risk Offenders) Act 2015 will allow the South Australian Supreme Court to make orders for supervision of “high risk offenders” that extend beyond the expiry of any term of imprisonment or parole period.  Under the Act, both serious sexual offenders and serious violent offenders will be considered “high risk offenders”.

In a press release announcing the Act’s assent in July last year, Deputy Premier John Rau said:

“It is a priority for this Government that our community feel safe. We are providing the Parole Board and the Supreme Court greater powers to protect the community from serious high risk offenders in our system…

Ensuring public confidence in our system is paramount and I am confident that these new laws will assist with just that.”

Extended Supervision Orders

The new laws require the Attorney-General to apply to the Supreme Court for an order to be made within 12 months of the expiry of a high risk offender’s sentence.  The Supreme Court must then determine whether or not to make the order, with the “paramount consideration” being “the safety of the community”.  They must also consider other factors, including the likelihood of the committal of further offences, any medical or Parole Board reports and whether the offender has participated in any treatment or rehabilitation programs.

An extended supervision order may contain a range of different conditions, for example requiring the offender to live at a certain address, be subject to electronic monitoring, be visited by police or by preventing them from associating with particular people.  A supervision order may be in force for up to five years, and the Attorney-General may continue to apply for subsequent orders.

If a person breaches, or is suspected of breaching, a supervision order, they may be summoned before the Parole Board, or a warrant may be issued for their arrest.  The Parole Board may then decide if the offender should be remanded in custody to be brought before the Supreme Court.  The Supreme Court may then choose to detain the person in custody under a “continuing detention order”.

Criticism

The South Australian Council for Civil Liberties has criticised the new legislation, with committee member George Mancini telling ABC News that the orders meant people would effectively be punished twice for one offence:

“Once you've done your time, that's it…  You've paid your debt and you should be free in the community having finished a sentence and not be subject to more and more restrictions.  People that are sentenced to jail ... shouldn't then have to be revisited with more punishment.”

He also said the new laws would not address the problem, saying:

“… really the Government should be looking at ... how to deliver the rehabilitation in jail before [the prisoner is] released, so they're just not tipped out into the community…Setting up supervision orders is just a control mechanism to control people from doing certain things or going certain places and is not really addressing the problem.”

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