Serious violent offenders: sentencing, psychiatry and law reform

Abstract

These proceedings discuss the major problems faced by courts and criminal justice practitioners in dealing with serious violent offenders who have personality disorders. Topics covered include: predicting dangerous behaviour; balancing the offender's rights against the need for community protection; inadequacies in the system; the treatment of violent offenders in prison; the principles of sentencing; and the process of review prior to release.

Proceedings of a conference held 29-31 October 1991

Contents

  • Personality disorder, the criminal justice system and the mental health system

    David Neal
  • Coping with the highly dangerous: issues of principle raised by preventive detention

    Professor C. R. Williams
  • Provisions for violent offenders: perpetuating myths or confronting challenges

    Margaret Ray MLA and Leanne Craze
  • 'Dangerous persons': to be gaoled for what they are, or what they may do, not for what they have done

    Ron Merkel QC
  • The politics of dangerousness

    Deidre Greig
  • Can the Victorian Parliament abolish fundamental rights?

    Bryan Keon-Cohen
  • Indeterminate sentences and dangerousness

    Ian Campbell
  • The principles of sentencing violent offenders: towards a more structured approach

    Ivan Potas
  • The case for due process in reviewable sentences

    Peter Svensson
  • Community safety and serious violent offenders

    Judge Paul Mullaly
  • Managing violent offenders in the correctional setting  a coordinated approach

    Peter Harmsworth
  • Managing serious violent offenders in South Australian prisons: control, consensus or responsibility

    John Dawes
  • Independent and intimate: the Serious Offenders' Review Board, New South Wales

    Graham Egan
  • Canberra's first forensic institute for rehabilitation services and training

    Hugh Veness
  • A relapse prevention approach to reducing aggressive behaviour

    Peter Prisgrove
  • Psychiatric treatment of violent offenders in prison

    Fredrick Stamp
  • A profile of forensic patients in New South Wales and an assessment of the role of the Mental Health Review Tribunal in effecting their release

    Robert Hayes, Michael Sterry, Tony Ovadia, Bernard Boerma and William Greer
  • Review for release: the use and misuse of psychiatric opinion

    William E. Lucas
  • Assessing the dangerousness and treatability of sex offenders in the community

    Dr William Glaser
  • The release of serious violent offenders and community safety

    Don Thomson, Astrid Birgden and Marlene Morison