For the purpose of this report, home detention programs are defined as the operation of programs, including pilot or trial schemes, under which adult offenders on home detention orders are managed by corrective services 1.A home detention order refers to “any order requiring an offender to remain within the precincts of a specified residence during specified hours; and permitting absences from those precincts only during specified periods for specified purposes” 2.
The analyses compare HD programs operating in NSW, Victoria, Queensland, SA, ACT, NT and New Zealand. Home Detention Orders in WA have been abolished under legislative amendments (although curfews and electronic monitoring may be applied as a condition of some correctional orders) and WA has therefore elected not to participate in this study. Tasmania does not operate an HD program. The ACT program was discontinued in 2005, but the ACT elected to continue to participate in the project.
There have been significant changes to home detention programs in two jurisdictions between the completion of this report and its publication. First, the implementation of the Queensland Corrective Services Act 2006 in August 2006 resulted in the introduction of parole as the only mechanism for release, ending the formal HD program which had operated in Queensland from 1987. Secondly, in Victoria, the Corrections and Sentencing Acts (Home Detention) Act 2003 was amended on 1 October 2006 to allow the home detention program which had previously been operated as a pilot program, to continue indefinitely from 1 January 2007.
The focus is on home detention orders operating as either a front-end sentencing option or a post-prison administrative release program. The report does not draw comparison about home detention used with unsentenced offenders, as this operates in only two jurisdictions (SA and ACT), with one of the two having only a small number of such orders during the period of the scheme’s operation. Therefore statistical comparisons between the two jurisdictions would not be reliable or valid. The exception is in the section on program operations as it is not possible to reliably disaggregate budget and staff numbers so as to exclude this group from the analysis.
1 NT statistics may include juvenile offenders, but this represents a very small number (only one or two detainees have been given HD orders)
2 Source: Standard Guidelines for Corrections in Australia (2004)