InBrief

The New South Wales Government plans to introduce in the Legislative Assembly a package of mandatory sentencing laws for a reduced range of offences. This follows intense criticism from the legal profession, highlighting the cost of greatly increasing incarceration rates. Bar Association President Phil Boulten SC commented in The Australian that "winding back the alcohol violence package was an acknowledgment of the unfairness of mandatory sentencing, and would save up to $1 billion in spending on jails and prosecuting people [who] would have pleaded not guilty because they had nothing to lose".