You be the Judge

Years 9 and10 Teacher Guide

CrossCurriculum Units

Sentencing Advisory Council

January2017

You be the Judge Years 9 and 10 Teacher GuideSentencing Advisory Council | 1

About You be the Judge

You be the Judge is a package of teaching materials on sentencing in Victoria. It covers basic sentencing theory and incorporates sentencing case studies based on real cases (names and some details have been changed).

The Sentencing Advisory Council of Victoria created You be the Judge as part of its community education function. The purpose of You be the Judge is to raise awareness of and address community concerns about sentencing.

You be the Judge is designed for use in Victorian schools in Years 9 and 10. It provides an engaging way for students to discuss, consider, and apply the principles of sentencing. Students will be required to weigh and balance the same factors in sentencing that judges do, and in so doing,students learn about how the boundaries of the law, current sentencing practices, and community values affect criminal sentencing in Victoria.

The Sentencing Advisory Council of Victoria is an independent statutory body established in 2004 under amendments to the Sentencing Act 1991(Vic). The functions of the Council are to:

  • provide statistical information on sentencing, including information on current sentencing practices
  • conduct research and disseminate information on sentencing matters
  • gauge public opinion on sentencing
  • consult on sentencing matters
  • advise the Attorney-General on sentencing issues
  • provide the Court of Appeal with written views on the giving, or review, of a guideline judgment.

Sentencing attracts a lot of community interest and concern. It often divides opinion. Perceived inconsistencies between the sentences imposed in different cases of the same kind of offence provide compelling stories for news and current affairs media, as does the anger of crime victims and their families at the perceived leniency of a sentence. Some commentators regularly criticise the courts for being soft on crime.

There is widespread misunderstanding of the purposes of sentencing and the meaning of key elements in sentencing such as parole and statutory maximum penalties.

By informing, advising, and educating, the Council aims to bridge the gaps in opinion that sentencing can provoke between the courts, the government, and the community.

The case studies in You be the Judge concentrate on the sentencing phase of the legal process. There is no mystery about the outcomes of the trials in these case studies. Each of the accusedhas been found guilty, so the focus is entirely on the factors that must be taken into account in sentencing the offender.

The case studies are presented as slide shows with accompanying teachers’ notes, including discussion points and suggested activities. This Teacher Guide provides links to relevant curriculum and preparation for teachers presenting the case studies.

Curriculum links and student learning outcomes

Victorian curriculum

As a teaching and learning resource, You be the Judge provides opportunities for various types of teaching and learning for a variety of capabilities across different learning areas.

You be the Judge contains topical, highly relevant resource material and opportunities for students to demonstrate capabilities in the learning areas of:

  • Civics and Citizenship
  • English
  • History
  • Mathematics
  • Media Arts
  • Digital Technologies.

Implementing You be the Judge across a number of curriculum areas lets students practise specific skills before drawing the threads together at the end of the study to reflect on what the group has learned about the process of sentencing. For example:

  • an English class might practise the skills of discussion and expository writing
  • a Mathematics class might concentrate on statistics and graph interpretation
  • a Civics and Citizenship class might explore how sentencing affects citizens’ rights and responsibilities.

Learning areas and capabilities

An important aspect of You be the Judge is the opportunity to teach and develop critical and creative thinking capabilities including:

  • solving problems
  • making decisions
  • thinking critically
  • developing an argument
  • using evidence in support of an argument.

Many of the activities will also help students to develop ethical, personal, and social capabilities.

Suggested student activities

The suggested student activitiesin You be the Judge include symbols showing the learning area or capability with which it is most aligned:

  • English 
  • Civics and Citizenship 
  • History 
  • Mathematics ±
  • Digital Technologies
  • Critical and Creative Thinking
  • The Arts
  • Media Arts

The computer symbol is used to indicate activities that require student use of a computer and the internet.

National Educational Goals

The Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians (2008) affirms the need to enable young Australians to engage effectively with an increasingly complex world and to become active and informed so they can exercise their rights and responsibilities as citizens.

The You be the Judgeprogram strongly reflects the goals of this Declaration, especially:

  • having ethical integrity
  • exercising judgment and responsibility in matters of morality
  • needing to be active and informed citizens with a commitment to the national values of democracy, equity, and justice
  • being willing to participate in Australia’s civic life.

National Framework for Values Education in Australian Schools

You be the Judge provides links with the National Framework for Values Education in Australian Schools. It ties in closely with the nine values for Australian schooling articulated in the National Framework.

Sentencing is based on values – the principles and fundamental beliefs that guide the community’s behaviour. You be the Judgesupports values education by exploring the values reflected in sentencing law and by considering how these values apply in specific, real-life cases.

Key concepts and understandings

You be the Judgeworks by providing students with the tools necessary to understand the aims, principles, and practice of sentencing in Victoria.

It requires students to apply this knowledge to a real-life case where they must make an informed decision about the appropriate penalty to impose on an offender.To do this effectively, students must learn about the range of penalties available for a particular crime, and understand the purposes, principles, and factors that influence sentencing.

As students go through the sentencing process for themselves, it will become clear that some degree of subjectivity is involved in sentencing. Just as for real-life judges and magistrates, students will find that sentencing an offender requires not just an understanding of the law, but also some reflection on personal values and community attitudes. These values and attitudes can be explored in many of the activities suggested within the teaching materials.

The teaching materials should be read alongside A Quick Guide to Sentencing (available on the Council’s website). The Quick Guide is a plain-language overview for teachers and students of the ‘what, when, where, how, and why’ of sentencing in Victoria.

You be the Judgecase studies

Caution

Be discreet. Each of the case studies presented in You be the Judgeis based on a real-life case. Names and some details have been changed. Victims and offenders alike have families, and some of these may be among your students. Unless there is a good reason to do so, resist suggestions to track down the actual case.

Be sensitive. Some of the offences and the details covered in You be the Judge could be traumatic for some students, especially those who have been involved in a similar case, are involved with the legal system, or have a parent or close relative in prison.

Each of the You be the Judgecase studies has a set of slides and notes. Relevant statistics and information about sentencing for the crimes featured in the case studiesare provided on the slides. Comments, extra information, suggested activities, and possible assessment tasks are provided in the notes that accompany the slides.

Before beginning a case study with your class, it is important that you read the slides and the accompanying notes in conjunction with the Teacher Guide. Decide which slides to emphasise and which activities to set for your students. There are many different suggested activities included in the notes to the slides, and there are further suggestions for individual and group activities elsewhere in this Teacher Guide.

Choice of activities

There is more material provided than you will have time to cover in class. It is includedto allow a choice of activities so you can design the most relevant, interesting, and appropriate set of lessons for your students.

The suggested student activities comprise two components:

  • discussion:questions that may be considered or activities that may be undertaken in class during the case study
  • extension:activities that require additional time and resources to conduct.

Duration

You be the Judgewas originally designed to run in four sessions, each of 50minutes:

  • two sessions spent laying the foundation using slides in Sections 1–3
  • one session on the crime and sentence (Sections 4–5)
  • a final session on sentence review and conclusion (Section 6).

You should not be constrained by this approach, however. Many teachers feel that the skills employed are important enough to justify spending longer on the program.

Before you begin, it is helpful to find out what knowledge and experience your students already have of the law, the courts, sentencing, and human rights.

Preparation for You be the Judge

After you have made yourself familiar with the material here, you may find it useful to prepare some resources to suit your particular approach to You be the Judge. Resources that could help to deliver the program include:

  • a selection of recent newspaper clippings dealing with examples of the kind of offence featured in the case study
  • a copy of the relevant Sentencing Snapshot (available from the Sentencing Advisory Council’s website)
  • sentencing statistics for the offence dealt with in the chosen case study (available from SACStat, the Council’s online sentencing statistics tool)
  • handouts to assist students in understanding the ideas about sentencing introduced in the slides and for reference when students are considering their own sentences. Such handouts could include:

descriptions of the various sentences available (e.g. from A Quick Guide to Sentencing)

relevant extractsfrom the Crimes Act 1958(Vic), such as a description of the offence

relevant extracts from court transcripts as provided in the notes to the slides

the glossary from this Teacher Guide.

When to ask students to consider a sentence

The slides present basic sentencing theory before the details of the case are revealed. Only then are students asked to fix an appropriate sentence for the crime. This format helps ensure that students keepan open mind while learning about the facts of the case.

If details of the case are presented before students learn about basic sentencing theory, they may be less likely to consider sentences other than the one they arrived at in aninitialknee-jerk reaction to the facts of the case.

Delivering You be the Judgecase studies

The slides are divided into six sections:

1.What is sentencing?

2.Sentencing theory

3.The crime and the time

4.The case

5.The sentence

6.Conclusion.

Suggested student activities

A question is posed on the title slide at the beginning of each section. Use general questioning to collect student predictions of the answer to these questions. Differences and similarities between student opinions and the facts of the case provide opportunities for lively discussion and debate.

1. What is sentencing?

The first section of slides concerns the origin and range of sentences available to judges in Victoria – where sentences originate and the range and the hierarchy of sentences.

Suggested student activities

Activities here focus on the separation of powers, what sentences are, and what students consider to be more and less severe sentences. Students use reasoning and analysis to compare their own values with communityvalues as reflected in available sentences and examples of sentences reported in the media.

2. Sentencing theory

This section deals with the principles and purposes of sentencing and the factors that must be taken into account by judges when sentencing offenders.

Suggested student activities

There are many opportunities for student discussion and debate during this part of You be the Judge. However, it may be helpful to have only a brief discussion early in the program and return to the more popular or controversial issues after the details of the case have been described.

A continuum (points on a line) exercise can be used to measure students’ attitudes towards different aspects of sentencing (e.g. any or all of the five purposes of sentencing, the principles of sentencing, orparole and non-parole periods) both before and after a detailed discussion about the facts, definitions, and application of that issue.

Students could also discuss their observations of public attitudes to the application of agivensentencing purpose or principle, for example, by identifying from news reporting any recent case that reflects the public’s understanding of, support for, or rejection of thepurpose or principle.

3. The crime and the time

This section outlines the specific crime emphasised in the case study – its description in law and the maximum penalty allowed under the law. There are also graphs that show recent sentencing trends for the particular crime.

Suggested student activities

Student discussion can focus on the case included in the case study, or on comparing this case with others from recent news media.

4. The case

Now it is time to consider the circumstances of the offence and the offender portrayed in the case study. Slides contain a description of the offender, a précis of the events that occurred during the offence, and other information that the judge would have had at his or her disposal at the point of imposing sentence.

It would be prudent to remind students that there is no question of guilt or innocence– the trial has been conducted and the accused has been found guilty. The focus of the case study is sentencing. Reiterating this point here will help to avoid irrelevant, time-wasting discussion.

5. The sentence

At this stage, students consider an appropriate sentence for the offence.

Suggested student activities

Students must choose the total sentence to be imposed. If the sentenceinvolves imprisonment, students must also decide on the non-parole period. Students should articulate and defend their opinions on what is an appropriate sentence for the offence in the particular case.

Students must refer to:

  • the purposes andprinciples of sentencing
  • the circumstances of the offender
  • the circumstances of the offence.

Students should use specialised and appropriate legal terminology in defending their opinions.

This activity can be conducted effectively by having individual students make their own decisions, noting down their reasoning, and then coming together in small groups to discuss their results and their reasons for arriving at them.

For effective, collaborative learning in groups, students should assume designated roles, such as manager, timekeeper, recorder, and reporter. These roles can be negotiated within the group or allocated by you. Later, whole class discussion will almost certainly reveal a wide range of sentences, providing an opportunity for reminding studentsabout the pressure on judges to ‘get it right’.

Students can identify other information that mayhave helped the judge to come to a fair decision. What factors could have had a bearing on the sentence but were not mentioned in the earlier slides?

Students may identify personal characteristics of the offender, such as age, gender, personal circumstances, or cultural background, and speculate about the effect these have on the offence or sentence. Such observations provide an opportunity to talk about the fact that judges are human, but emphasise the importance for consistency in sentencing andhaving some sentencing guidelines for judges to work within, such as those outlined in the Sentencing Act 1991(Vic).

Once the various sentences imposed by the students have been discussed and justified, reshow the slides of sentencing graphs from Section 3 (‘The crime and the time’). Ask students to construct generalisations about the sentence imposed for the offence highlighted in the case study. These might include comments on the distribution of various types of sentences imposed.

Students can then, either individually or in small groups, return to the sentences they decided on and discuss how well their sentences ‘fit’ with the statistics. Are there any indications that students’sentences may be too severe or too lenient?

  • Now reveal the actual sentence imposed by the trial judge.
  • Compare this sentence with the sorts of sentences decided on by the students.
  • Is there general agreement or is there a wide disparity?
  • Go back to the graphs concerning past sentences to note where the judge’s sentence fits.
  • Construct a quick continuum on which students can record their reactions to the judge’s sentence.
  • Discuss similarities and differences between the judge’s sentence and sentencessuggested by students, seeking possible reasons for similarities/differences.
  • Can students identify different values at work here?

6. Conclusion

Through two statements on sentencing, the final slide provides an opportunity for students to reflect on what they have learnt about sentencing. The acknowledgement of any changes in attitude experienced by students during the program will highlightthe importance of being well informed.

Suggested concluding student activities

At the conclusion of the case study, recall questions can serve as a focus for quick revision. You might also like to present questions for discussion in large or small groups or in pairs, with the aim of coming up with consensus answers, or to have individuals respond with formal written answers.