This report is the result of work conducted by the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC), on behalf of the Commissioner for Children in Tasmania, to examine one year's worth of data (from the 2004/05 financial year) on young people remanded in custody and to interpret the results in the light of relevant literature and publicly available information on Tasmania and elsewhere. The objectives of the research were to examine: the main characteristics of Tasmanian juvenile remandees and remand episodes over a one year period; the time served on remand and wherever possible, sentencing outcomes over the one year period; and patterns of juvenile remand in Tasmania and other jurisdictions. Data analysis revealed that for the group as a whole whose sentence outcomes were complete, 39 per cent did not receive a sentence of detention in the 12 months data. The data also indicated that many young people were spending a considerable period of time on remand and over a third of the young people had spent over 11 weeks in custody on remand. Some of these issues were raised in 2003 after a series of consultations with stakeholders led by the Chief Magistrate. The consultations that were held for this research project indicated that while these issues have been identified previously, so far there has been little systematic change made to address them. As a result, a series of proposed improvements to the Tasmanian juvenile justice remand system are included.
Report prepared by the Australian Institute of Criminology for the Commissioner for Children, Tasmania.
This report forms appendix A of Review of juvenile remandees in Tasmania : April 2006 / Commissioner for Children, Tasmania.