Lisa Ward: Fantastic to see such a great turnout. Obviously our topic has hit the mark tonight, and it’s really encouraging to see.

I’d like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we’re meeting tonight, the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation, and I’d like to pay my respect to their elders both past and present.

My name is Lisa Ward, and I’m the Deputy Chair of the Sentencing Advisory Council. I’ve spent many years consulting on a range of justice research, practice and policy issues, and I’ve got a particular interest in youth justice, child protection, and early intervention; and particularly relevant to tonight’s discussion, an interest in how those policy areas impact on adult corrections.

The theme of our discussion tonight, “Why Prison, Why Not?” is extremely timely. In the past decade, the State’s prison population has increased by almost 50%, and in the past 18months alone it’s increased by roughly 20% to 6,000prisoners, with forecast of 7,000 by June next year. There’s really good evidence that this increase is driven by shifts in parole and sentencing practice, rather than any substantial shift in crime rates.

Last week’s State Budget detailed expenditure of $470M on an additional 870prison beds, with a further 2000 in the pipeline. And that’s on top of the 1,200 that have come online since 2011. So clearly, the prison complex is swelling. At a construction cost of about $0.5M per bed, at an operating cost of around about $100,000 per annum, this is a really expensive business.

A key question that we have to ask is whether prison expenditure is the most effective means of ensuring public safety, and what viable alternatives exist. And these types of questions are the ones that we’ll be exploring this evening. And we have of course a very well qualified panel to help us with these questions.

Emeritus Professor Arie Freiberg is the Chair of both the Victorian and the Tasmanian Sentencing Advisory Councils. Arie was the Dean of the Faculty of Law at Monash University for eight years, and before that the Dean of the Faculty of Arts at Melbourne Uni. He’s an internationally renowned expert on sentencing issues in the criminal justice system, and has undertaken extensive research on sentencing theory, policy, and practice. His landmark review of sentencing in Victoria continues to shake the system that remains today. Tonight, Arie will apply his unique experience to explore, among other things, the range … the role of imprisonment in Victoria’s sentencing hierarchy.

Emeritus Professor David Brown has taught and researched criminal law at the University of New South Wales for decades. He is widely published across many areas of criminal law, criminology, and penology, both in Australia and internationally, and is a regular commentator on media … media commentator on criminal justice issues. His more recent role as Chief Investigator for the Australian Justice Reinvestment Project, is really relevant to his presentation tonight, and is the subject on which he will focus – justice reinvestment.

MsCarmel Arthur is not only a victim of crime, but has worked with many victims of crime. She advocates for better treatment of victims and their families throughout the criminal justice process. Carmel is a founding member of the Sentencing Advisory Council, and a long-term community member of the Adult Parole Board. Her vast experience in the criminal justice system leaves her really well placed to comment on what a fair sentence means from a victim perspective, including how victims may view alternatives to incarceration and incarceration itself.

Our final presenter this evening is Magistrate David Fanning. Magistrate Fanning is the sole magistrate at the Neighbourhood Justice Centre and hears every matter, giving him quite a unique insight into the variety of justice issues facing Melbourne. Before becoming Tasmania’s Commissioner for Children in 2004, David spent 15years as a barrister in Melbourne, specialising in family law, in child protection, juvenile justice, and mediation. He has a strong commitment to tackling the underlying causes of offending via a therapeutic approach. David will focus this evening on the concept of therapeutic justice and problem-solving courts by his experience in the Neighbourhood Justice Centre.

So the strength of our panel tonight is really that it comprises a whole range of perspectives on the criminal justice system. We’ll begin with a presentation from each of our panellists, and then open up to what I hope will be a really lively Q&A section, given the composition of our audience.

As you know, the Sentencing Advisory Council is well known for its presence on Twitter, and tonight is no exception. So true to form, you can tweet your questions throughout the forum as they arise to you, using the hashtag “whyprison”, which is up here behind me, and they’ll be passed to me. Alternatively, make a note of the issues and questions as they occur to you, and there’ll be a roving mike in the Q&A session as well.

Please note that all of the proceedings tonight will be audiotaped, and an audio file and transcript will be placed on the SAC website. So we aim to have a lively discussion and still have you out by about 7:40.

So let me begin tonight the formal part of our proceedings by welcoming Professor Arie Freiberg.

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