'The use of police cautions and youth justice conferences in NSW in 2010' [
PDF] by Elizabeth Moore of the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics & Research (BOCSAR) assesses whether the philosophy of the
Young Offenders Act 1997 (NSW) is "being adhered to in respect to the nature of offences being diverted and the use of the hierarchical approach to sanctioning". It describes the use of police cautions, youth justice conferences (YJCs) and proven Children’s Court appearances among a cohort of young people in NSW in 2010, with data drawn from the NSW Re-offending Database (ROD).
The Act applies to young people in NSW aged between 10 and 17 years at the time of the offence. A number of offences are excluded from the Act and must result in a court appearance. These include most sexual offences, offences that result in the death of any person, serious drug offences and traffic offences (if the offender is old enough to hold a driver’s licence).
Whether the offence can be dealt with through the YOA is only one determining factor in selecting the appropriate level of intervention. A number of other factors influence the decision, including the age of the young person at the time of the offence, the seriousness of the offence (taking into account the harm to the victim and the level of violence involved), prior offending history, and whether the young person makes an admission of guilt (Clancey, Doran and Maloney, 2005). If an admission of guilt is not made, offences cannot be processed by way of a police caution or a YJC. The legislation specifies a limit of three police cautions per individual. No such limits are prescribed for YJCs. It is, however, generally understood that a young person would not be offered multiple YJCs if they continued to re-offend (Clancey, Doran and Maloney, 2005).
Despite the fact that there is a great deal of public interest in the Act, little is known regarding the proportion of young people receiving multiple police cautions and YJCs.
Moore indicates that -
Overall, the results were in the expected direction when the hierarchy of sanctions under the Act are considered (ie from police caution to YJC to proven court appearance). Very few young people in this cohort received more than three police cautions and/or YJCs. Additionally, no young person was given a YJC for homicide related offences that are excluded under the Act. Juvenile offenders, however, were much more likely to receive a caution or be referred to court than to be referred to a Youth Justice Conference.
The philosophy of the Act has largely been adhered to, at least insofar as the gradation of sanctions and the types of offences being diverted are concerned.
Moore's separate paper 'Youth Justice Conferences versus Children’s Court: a comparison of time to finalisation' [
PDF] compares police-referred youth justice conferences (YJCs), court referred YJCs and Children’s Court matters on the time to finalisation, and assesses the contribution of index offence- and/or offender-related characteristics as potential confounders.
The study utilised data from the NSW Re-Offending Database (ROD) for three cohorts of young people: those with a court-referred YJC held in 2010 (C-YJC), those with a police-referred YJC held in 2010 (P-YJC), and those with a proven Children’s Court (CC) appearance finalised in 2010. Negative binomial regression models were fitted to determine index offence- and offender-related characteristics associated with time to finalisation.
The C-YJC cohort had a significantly longer time to finalisation compared to the CC cohort and the P-YJC cohort, even after controlling for confounders. In addition, the CC cohort had a significantly longer time to finalisation compared to the P-YJC cohort. Older age, being Indigenous, having a case dealt with in a Metropolitan region, and having more concurrent index offences remained significant predictors of an increase in number of days to finalisation in the adjusted model.
The findings suggest that police should be encouraged to refer eligible matters to a YJC given the time-related efficiency identified via this pathway. The findings suggest it may be appropriate to consider further revising the legislated time-frames as there may be legitimate reasons for why delays occur.
