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34 U. Tas. L. Rev. 6 (2015)
Suspended Sentences in Tasmania: An Analysis of the Impact of Recent Breach Reforms

handle is hein.journals/utasman34 and id is 163 raw text is: Suspended Sentences in Tasmania: An Analysis of the Impact of Recent Breach Reforms EMILY BILL# AND LORANA BARTELS* Abstract This article examines the impact of recent legislative and administrative reforms for dealing with breaches of fully suspended sentences imposed in the Supreme Court of Tasmania. Our findings indicate that the recent reforms have led to a significant improvement in the rate at which breach proceedings were instituted, from 5 per cent to 55 per cent. An additional improvement is the increased speed with which breach proceedings are now instituted. However, no breach action was taken in nearly half of the cases where an offender committed an imprisonable offence in breach of their sentence. Furthermore, the recently introduced legislative presumption of activation on breach does not appear to have been effective. The failure to activate the sentence in almost half of breach actions suggests that the punitive nature of this sentencing measure remains somewhat illusory, which may contribute to public perceptions of leniency. This article demonstrates the measurable impact of past legislative reforms, while highlighting some areas for further improvement in relation to responses to breaches of suspended sentences; these may in turn enhance the credibility of and public support for this sentencing option. # BA/LLB (Hons I) (UTas). * BA/LLB LLM (UNSW) PhD (UTas). Associate Professor, University of Canberra; Honorary Associate Professor, University of Tasmania. Email: lorana.bartels@canberra.edu.au. The research reported in this article was undertaken as part of the first author's Honours thesis, supervised by Professor Kate Warner (as she then was). The second author was engaged by the Tasmanian Sentencing Advisory Council (TSAC) to undertake research on its review of suspended sentences. The authors are indebted to Her Excellency Professor the Honourable Kate Warner AM, Emeritus Professor Arie Freiberg and Dr Jeremy Prichard for their incisive comments on earlier drafts of this article. This project was granted ethics approval by the Tasmania Social Science Human Ethics Research Committee at the University of Tasmania.

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