Alternatives to Imprisonment: 3
| Published date | 01 December 1969 |
| Date | 01 December 1969 |
| Author | Mary Daunton-Fear |
| DOI | 10.1177/000486586900200407 |
| Subject Matter | Original Articles |
AUST. &N.Z. JOURNAL OF CRIMINOLOGY (Dec., 1969):
2,4
Alternatives
to
Imprisonment: 3
MARY DAUNTON-FEAR*
227
I MUST confess Ihave been somewhat
reluctant
to speak to
the
topic
"Alternatives to Imprisonment" because
the
subject implies
that
the
speaker
has
thought
up some bright new
means
of emptying gaols, reduc-
ing
crime
rates
and
generally producing aUtopian type of society. Unfor-
tunately
Ican make no such claim. The most I
can
say is
that
I
think
the
sanction of imprisonment is often applied on a
pretty
"hit
or miss"
basis
and
I
think
we need to experiment a
great
deal more
with
non-
custodial
and
semi-custodial measures.
Isuspect
that
in his paper, Professor Drinkwater (see pp.
??)
found
the
subject presented
him
with asimilar problem because he
has
been
concerned mainly with
the
question, "Why do we need alternatives to
imprisonment?"
rather
than
the
question:
"What
are
the
e1fective
alter-
natives to imprisonment?"
As
far
as
the
need for effective alternatives is concerned, Professor
Drinkwater
has
presented aconvincing
argument
that
the
debit side of
imprisonment
far
outweighs
the
credit side very often in
turns
of social
and
economic costs. He
has
referred to
this
state
of affairs particularly
with
regard to unconvicted prisoners,
with
regard to prisoners convicted
for
non-payment
of fines
and
with regard to short-sentence prisoners.
I would like to
take
up
the
subject of "Alternatives to Imprisonment"
first with regard to unconvicted prisoners
and
secondly
with
regard to
convicted prisoners.
Un
convicted
Prisoners
Now
the
obvious alternative to imprisonment for unconvicted prisoners
is bail.
This
is so
trite
that
Ihardly dare say it. Bail
in
Australia takes
the
form of a bond, by which
the
accused
man
undertakes
to
pay
(with
or without sureties) a
certain
sum of money which is generally fixed by
amagistrate sitting in a lower court.
If
the
accused
man
does
not
appear
in
court
on
the
day fixed in
the
bond or
the
recognisance,
the
bond is
estreated
and
the
sum of money becomes payable.
The circumstances
under
which
an
unconvicted
man
should be
sent
to prison are of course controversial because of
the
competing interests
involved. On
the
one
hand,
there
is
the
interest
of
the
accused
man
Who,
under
the
Anglo-Australian system of justice, is presumed to be innocent
until
he is proved to be guilty beyond all reasonable doubt. This
pre-
sumption, by itself, is a strong reason to
deter
us from depriving a
man
of his liberty
but
when it is added
to
such factors as
the
diftlculty of
ensur-
ing segregation of
the
unconvicted people from
the
convicted people
in
prisons,
the
interruption
or loss of employment,
and
the
interruption
and
*LL.M., Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Adelaide.
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