Beyond Punishment Seminar: Are the aims of sentencing realised in practice?

In-person event

Much ink has been spilled over what the proper aims of sentencing should be, and it seems that different aims have become more or less prominent over time. The rehabilitative aim gave way to more retributive approaches in the 1970s in many countries and perhaps to approaches with more focus on dangerousness in recent times. But how well are the aims of sentencing realised in practice?

This Beyond Punishment Seminar will consider how the aims of sentencing as contained in the law matches up with reality of actual criminal justice practices. So, does rehabilitation really have a significant place in current approaches to criminal sanctions? How is this impacted by issues of funding or discretion? Is the reality of the response to offending largely punitive and how much does it reduce the capacity to reoffend? Do the sentences imposed by the courts or the experiences of sanction really deter? If there is discrepancy between stated aims and the practice how should this discrepancy be addressed, and which parts of the discrepancy are most troubling?

This seminar will address these and other questions.

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Registration

Complimentary, however registration is essential.

Register here

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Panellists

• The Honourable Justice Yehia was appointed to the Supreme Court in June 2022 having served as a District Court Judge for 8 years. In addition to her service as a judge of the District and Supreme Courts, her Honour holds a number of positions including Board member and previous Chair of Diverse Women in Law, Board member of the AIJA, Chair of the Ngara Yura Committee and member of the Bugmy Bar Book Committee. Her Honour is also a member of the Judicial Commission’s Sentencing Bench Book Committee and became an Adjunct Professor at the UNSW Law School in 2023, where she teaches an advanced course on sentencing law.
• Jennifer Galouzis is the Assistant Commissioner of Strategy & Policy, Corrective Services NSW. Currently in the final year of her PhD at the University of Melbourne, her research focuses on “A rehabilitative prison environment: Accountability, complexity and the possibility of therapeutic prisons.” With over 20 years of experience in prison and correctional research, Jennifer’s work encompasses the ecology of prison environments, the social and cultural climate of prisons, and the measurement of prison performance. She has published in the areas of rehabilitative design, preventing prison violence, sex offender treatment, and the role of corrective services in reducing reoffending
• The Honourable Geoffrey Bellew SC was appointed Senior Counsel in 2006 and in 2011 he was appointed a Justice of the Supreme Court of New South Wales. He served continually as a Judge of the Common Law Division until February 2023. Upon his retirement Mr Bellew was appointed by the Attorney-General as the Chairperson of the State Parole Authority. He is the author of a number of texts published by Lexis Nexis, including Uniform Evidence Law, Principles and Context, a substantive text on the law of evidence. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Law, a member of the Law Advisory Board, and a sessional lecturer, at Notre Dame University, Sydney.
• Dr Mindy Sotiri is Executive Director, Justice Reform Initiative and has worked in criminal justice system settings as an advocate, community sector practitioner, academic, and researcher for more than twenty-five years. During this time, much of her work has been focused on advocacy around decarceration and building sustainable community-based and community led pathways outside of prison settings. Mindy completed her PhD in 2003 (looking at the purpose of imprisonment in NSW); completed a Churchill Fellowship in 2016 (looking at evidence based community led re-entry and post-release programs) and is a senior visiting fellow at UNSW.

Chair

• Dr Allan McCay is Co-director of the Sydney Institute of Criminology and an Academic Fellow at the University of Sydney’s Law School. He coordinates the Legal Research units at the Sydney Law School, and lectures in Criminal Law. Much of his work as focused on neuroscience, neurotechnology, and the criminal law. He is also interested in free will and punishment, ethical issues related to emerging neurotechnologies, and the future of legal work. His first coedited book Free Will and the Law: New Perspectives is published by Routledge (2019) and his second, Neurointerventions and the Law: Regulating Human Mental Capacity is published by Oxford University Press (2020).

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Tuesday 8 October 2024

Time: 6-8pm

Venue: Sydney Law School, Law Foyer, Level 2, New Law Building (F10), University of Sydney, Camperdown campus

CPD Points = 2

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This event is presented by the Sydney Institute of Criminology at Sydney Law School in conjunction with Corrective Services NSW.