The Sentencing Advisory Council today released a report examining Victorian courts’ increasing use of time served prison sentences – imprisonment sentences equal to the time an offender has already spent on remand.

The report finds that in the seven years to 30 June 2018, time served prison sentences increased from 5% to 20% of all prison sentences imposed in Victoria. It also finds that the remand population accounted for over 92% of the growth in Victoria’s prison population in the five years to 30 June 2018. Half of time served prison sentences were combined with a community correction order.

These findings suggest that Victoria’s growing remand population is indirectly affecting sentencing outcomes.

The report flags important policy implications of the increase in time served prison sentences, including:

the effect of time served prison sentences on offenders’ ability to transition back into the community on short notice

the extent to which time served prison sentences can achieve the key sentencing purposes of: rehabilitation (the availability of targeted rehabilitation programs) protection of the community (the ability of the justice system to monitor people after their release from custody)

the extent to which some people on remand may be pleading guilty in the hope of being released earlier than if they contested the charges

the application of the sentencing principle of parsimony to time served prison sentences (that is, how courts fulfil their statutory obligation to impose a sentence that is no more severe than is necessary to achieve the purposes of sentencing).

The full report, Time Served Prison Sentences in Victoria, is available from our website.