Ballarat courts have been stretched to breaking point following a huge increase in the number of people charged with breaching bail conditions and court orders.
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Known as secondary offences, charges for bail, parole and court ordered sentence breaches have doubled in the past five years.
The Sentencing Advisory Council released a report into secondary offences on Tuesday.
Ballarat Legal Aid managing lawyer Cameron Ford said the increase showed changes to bail laws were seeing more people charged for breaches.
“I think it is a reflection of the fact it is a lot easier for the police to breach people,” he said.
“There is a lot more emphasis on responding to family violence situations
“The police mandate is to act very promptly on family violence matters, so if an interim order is in place and there is a breach, the affected family member can call police who can arrest the person.”
Secondary offences were defined in the report as breaches of bail, parole, court ordered sentences – such as a community corrections order – or a breach of a sex offence order.
These breaches accounted for 10 per cent of all crimes for which offenders were sentenced in Victorian courts in 2015-2016.
This was a five per cent increase from 2011-2012.
Seventy per cent were sentenced for breaching bail conditions, which includes travelling interstate, while another 25 per cent were sentenced for breaching court orders.
The other two categories accounted for 5.2 per cent of secondary offences sentenced in court.
There were nearly 32,000 charges sentenced for these breaches in Victoria between 2015-16.
Mr Ford said Victorian courts now had huge case loads as more people were facing charges in relation to bail conditions being broken.
“A lot of courts are on the brink of crisis point, Victorian Legal Aid is certainly looking at hiring more lawyers to assist with demands on the court system,” he said,
“Bail conditions can be quite stringent, especially for young offenders, certainly there is more police attention to people breaching bail conditions.
“It is a question of properly resourcing so people on bail have the right support to ensure they aren’t breaching their conditions.”
Punishment for secondary offences was evenly spread between fines, 21 per cent, community correction orders, 20 per cent, and imprisonment at 19 per cent.
However 84 per cent of the prison sentences were part of an aggregate sentence, where the offender was also charged with another crime.
Sentencing Advisory Council chair Arie Freiberg said the study had not determined the total percentage of court orders that were breached.
“It is hard to distinguish when we don’t know the extent of secondary offending because no has studied this before,” he said.
“This study looks at what happens only when people are sentenced for these breaches.
“We have not been able to determine how many of those on orders do or do not breach them.”
Mr Freiberg said people appearing before court on for bail or court order breaches were often facing multiple charges.