Youth Justice Amendment Bill 2016 (TAS)

The Tasmanian Government has introduced the Youth Justice Amendment Bill 2016 into its Legislative Assembly. The Bill amends the Youth Justice Act 1997 to allow the court to determine whether there has been a breach of a Supervised Release Order (SRO). This will allow evidence to be tested, the impacted youth will be able to answer and explain their side of the breach and an independent judicial decision will then be able to be made.

Background

The Minister, Jacquie Petrusma, made clear that the object of the Bill will be based on the principle that “detention of young people should be used as a last resort and detention should apply for the shortest time necessary when used in sentencing.”

The amendments follow a report from the Ombudsman delivered in March 2014 titled “Investigation into the detention of a young person following the contravention of a supervised release order.” Essentially, the Ombudsman found that the current process involving SRO and the Department of Health and Human Services’ determination of a breach of an SRO was lacking. The Ombudsman subsequently made five recommendations to improve the system. The current Bill encompasses four of these recommendations.

The Bill

Under the current system, a youth can be released from detention after completing 50 per cent of his or her sentence. The release will be accompanied by an SRO and he or she must comply with any attached conditions. The amendments under this Bill will now allow a Magistrate to determine whether there has been a breach of the SRO. This function was previously exercised by the Department.

The Department will still be responsible for issuing a warning to a youth in the event of a breach and fully inform them of their rights. If there has been a breach of the SRO the magistrate has the option of allowing the SRO to continue unchanged, amend the Supervised Release Order or cancel the SRO entirely.

Further to this, the Bill provides amendments that provide clarity to the meaning of ‘time served’ for the purpose of calculating the earliest release date. Finally, the Bill provides amendment for the purpose of clarifying that a detention centre manager cannot refuse to allow prescribed officers from entering a youth detention centre.

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 Youth Justice Amendment Bill 2016, Bill, explanatory Memorandum and 2nd Reading Speech as published on LawOne