A perspective on the work of the Victorian Sentencing Advisory Council and its potential to promote respect and equality for women.

Source: (2008) In Arie Freiberg and Karen Gelb, Eds., Penal Populism, Sentencing Councils and Sentencing Policy. Cullompton, Devon UK: Willan Publishing. Pp.165-178

In most justice systems in the developed world, police, courts and correctional services have had almost two decades of experience in contending with a vocal and sophisticated group of advocates for survivors of gender-based violence. Justice systems across the globe are being asked to collaborate in an effort to clarify the role of law and justice in the elimination of the violence. One last bastion of this system, relatively untouched by gender-based violence activism, is the critically important policy site of sentencing. Here, the struggle for harsher or more lenient sentences plays with monotony in the background of what could be far more informed, just and fair discussion focused on the role of sentencing, of punishment, of rehabilitation and of denunciation in the prevention and elimination of gender-based violence. Before us now is the challenge to force sentencing policy that eradicates violence-supportive attitudes, racism and xenophobia in relation to rape and other gendered violence. (Excerpt)