ORCID Profile
0000-0003-1127-9767
Current Organisations
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
,
Deakin University
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Publisher: Deakin University
Date: 08-2011
DOI: 10.21153/DLR2011VOL16NO1ART97
Abstract: The clinical and criminological literature on adolescents who have committed sexual offences indicates that the pathologisation of young people and a labelling or overly punitive response is likely to be more harmful than rehabilitative. Accordingly, therapeutic counselling and ersionary schemes are seen as preferable to custodial terms in most instances. For adolescents convicted of sex offences, clinicians identify the benefits of comprehensive therapeutic care which involves family and is sensitive to the young person’s context and culture. The benefits of this approach are documented and, although data are limited, indications are that reci ism is reduced where adolescents are provided with specialised counselling to encourage positive and non-abusive behaviours. In Australia, each state and territory has provisions for youth justice clients serving custodial or community orders for sexually abusive behaviours. Yet each jurisdiction experiences challenges in ensuring the delivery of equitable and comprehensive therapeutic services, particularly to regionally and remotely located youth. This paper draws on data from a national study of the therapeutic services to children and adolescents with sexualised or sexual offending behaviours. With attention to the difficulties in providing services to regionally and remotely located adolescents, this paper highlights challenges around lengthy remand terms, the provision of pre-offence ersionary programs, and the provision of specialised supervision for young people serving community orders. For ex le, jurisdictions with the largest geographic service areas face enormous difficulties in providing specialised supervision for community-based orders. At present, there are several jurisdictions where regionally and remotely located adolescents may serve the duration of a youth justice order without receiving specialised counselling to assist them in modifying their behaviours. The paper identifies the risks where specialised counselling cannot be provided, but also identifies specific initiatives designed to fill these gaps in service provision to youth justice clients.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 20-07-2022
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan UK
Date: 2016
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 29-09-2011
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 03-2016
Publisher: Unpublished
Date: 2017
Publisher: Brill
Date: 12-2014
DOI: 10.1163/15718182-02204004
Abstract: Children’s engagement with online technologies may seem second nature, yet the impact that the Internet has on their lives is shaped by a powerful public policy agenda that largely overlooks children’s interests. Australia’s digital policy framework is dominated by discourses of safety and risk on the one hand and, on the other, neoliberal arguments about the possibilities for economic growth offered by e-commerce. In the midst of such powerful discourses it is difficult for children’s voices to be heard. This paper offers a close textual analysis of the Australian public policy context for regulating cyberspace. Finding a discursive duopoly that overlooks children’s interests, the author identifies two key features of a rights-based approach to challenge the dominant narratives currently serving the interests of the private sector and the State.
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 30-01-2015
DOI: 10.1093/HRLR/NGU043
Publisher: Brill
Date: 03-05-2018
DOI: 10.1163/15718182-02602004
Abstract: Recent practices in the administration of youth justice across Australian state and territory jurisdictions reveal a powerful tension between the punitive imperative of “tough on crime” political populism, and internationally agreed minimum standards relevant to the treatment of children. In questioning the extent to which human rights standards can and should be used as a useful tool to counter punitive youth justice practices, this article identifies major points of discrepancy between Australia’s international legal obligations and the doctrine and operation of domestic criminal law as it applies to children in conflict with the law. Examining youth justice “crises” in two Australian states, the Northern Territory and Victoria, the article concludes that while child rights are not directly justiciable in Australia, global standards on youth justice provide a unifying discourse that is resistant to the vagaries of populism, and which can guide reform for child rights compliant youth justice legislation and practice.
Publisher: Queensland University of Technology
Date: 19-02-2019
Abstract: The rebuttable presumption of doli incapax is available in all Australian states and territories and provides that, where a child is unable to comprehend the distinction between actions that are ‘seriously wrong’ and those that are ‘naughty or mischievous’, they cannot be held criminally responsible for their actions. Despite the key role that doli incapax should play in erting the youngest offenders away from the criminal justice system, its operation to date has been largely unexamined. This article seeks to directly address this gap. Drawing on the experiences of those involved in all aspects of the youth justice system, this article examines the need for, and the effectiveness of, the presumption of doli incapax in Victoria, Australia. Revealing inconsistencies in the use of the presumption, the article also examines the need for future reform of this area of law.
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 19-05-2017
DOI: 10.1093/BJC/AZW042
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 03-04-2017
Abstract: In Australia, children as young as 10 are charged, convicted and sentenced for breaches of the law. Drawing on interviews with youth justice professionals in Victoria, this study finds that inconsistencies in practice undermine the extent to which the common law presumption of doli incapax offers an effective legal safeguard for very young children in conflict with the law. This article advocates that the Australian minimum age of criminal responsibility be increased to 14, that the principle of doli incapax be applied consistently to all persons under the age of 18 and that justice responses be supplanted by therapeutic supports for children and families.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 07-2016
DOI: 10.1037/PLA0000029
Publisher: Unpublished
Date: 2017
No related grants have been discovered for Wendy O'Brien.