Mandatory Compliance Report

In the criminal justice system, compliance occurs when members of society are encouraged to abide by laws. In this system, elements such as Youth Justice Conferences, the International Criminal Court and Mandatory Minimum Sentencing are relatively ineffective in encouraging compliance within the domestic and international community. In order to encourage compliance, laws should be enforceable and reflect the moral standards of society. The International Criminal Court (ICC), established under the Rome Statute 1998, is a permanent court that intends to prosecute individuals accused of serious crimes. However, this court’s decisions lack enforceability, therefore fail to adequately encourage compliance with international law. The court can …show more content…
This law achieves enforceability and reflects the moral and ethical standards of society, however, elements of this scheme fail to address issues regarding deterrence and recidivism. The law was adopted after R v Loveridge 2013 (NSW), in which a ‘king hit’ killer Kieran Loveridge was sentenced to 4 years non parole for the death of Thomas Kelly. This sparked public outcry, with SMH Feb 2014 “Four years for a life: Kelly Family’s outrage” in addition to a Change.Org Petition gaining 143,000 signatures, calling on the NSW Premier of the time Barry O’Farrell to reform the law. As such, the 2014 Amendment to the Crimes Act to include Mandatory Minimum Sentencing reflects society’s moral and ethical standards. The law achieves enforceability, through certainty that the sentencing outcome will be imposed. However, elements of mandatory minimum sentencing, specifically the removal of judicial discretion, have been criticised by the Australian Law Council in their May 2014 Policy Discussion on mandatory sentencing. The report states that mandatory minimum sentencing “simply displaces discretion to other parts of the criminal justice system”. In attempting to achieve compliance, mandatory sentencing aims to deter crime. However, this scheme fails to act as an effective deterrent, limiting its effectiveness in achieving this goal. This failure to deter future crime is further supported in the report, which states that “There is inconclusive evidence as to whether mandatory sentencing schemes achieve deterrence” This lack of deterrence to future crime is further illustrated in the with these regimes “not having a clear and directly attributable corresponding benefit in crime reduction” (ALRC Report). While mandatory minimum sentencing does not achieve adequate deterrence, it is a moderately