Hudson N1
1University of Tasmania
Biography:
Christina (Nina) Hudson received her PhD in law in August 2022, and has a Masters in Criminology and arts/law degree. She is a senior research assistant in the Faculty of Law, University of Tasmania and works as a consultant in legal writing, research, and policy work. Prior to this, she worked for over 10 years in a range of independent advisory bodies in the South Australian and Victorian public service providing advice on legal policy and law reform, conducting research and evaluation and undertaking consultation.
Conventional paradigms for understanding family violence (FV) sentencing, underpinned by adversarial and traditional ideals of the ‘justice model’, have tended to prioritise the sentence itself as the most important mechanism for offender behaviour change. However, research has identified problematic practices under the dominant justice model and highlighted a disjuncture between traditional and contemporary conceptualisations of FV. This has cast doubt on the wisdom and effectiveness of strictly traditional approaches to sentencing, given its significance as a tool for communicating with the offender. Therapeutic jurisprudence (TJ) offers an innovative lens for viewing FV sentencing. Drawing on the social and behavioural sciences, TJ aims to understand the law’s potential to be a therapeutic agent and promote positive behaviour change in its participants.
This paper is based on Dr Hudson’s PhD thesis, an empirical study that addresses a research gap on the potential of TJ to be harnessed in the moment of judicial communication of sentence to intimate partner violence (IPV) offenders, amid ongoing efforts to increase perpetrator accountability and improve community safety. The study employed quantitative and qualitative analysis of sentencing comments for decisions by magistrates (in-court observation) and judges (published online) in Tasmania, and Victoria (n=135). The paper presents the original ‘TJ lens framework’, developed and applied to conceptualise sentence delivery as ‘communicative court-craft’, articulating three ‘dimensions’ aligned with potential effects of judicial practice on offender psychology and emotional wellbeing. Further, it highlights key examples demonstrating the manifestation (or otherwise) of the dimensions, critically reflecting on the identified qualities communicative court-craft practice in IPV sentencing.