The Independent National Security Legislation Monitor’s Review of the Commonwealth post-sentence detention and monitoring regime for terrorist offenders.

Nolan M¹

¹Charles Sturt University

Biography:

Professor Mark Nolan is an interdisciplinary law and psychology scholar with a background in teaching and researching criminal law and procedure, including federal criminal law and counter-terrorism law, as well as law and psychology. Mark is currently the Director of the Centre for Law and Justice at Charles Sturt University and Deputy Director of the Contemporary Threats to Australian Security research group at Charles Sturt University funded by the Sturt Scheme. Mark is the Editor-in-Chief of the ANZAPPL journal Psychiatry, Psychology and Law and has served as President of the ACT Branch and Membership Secretary on the binational ANZAPPL Committee.

In 2022, Australia’s Independent National Security Legislation Monitor (INSLM) conducted a review of Division 105A of the Criminal Code (Cth), the division of Australia’s Federal Criminal Code which enables, prior to the expiry of a sentence of imprisonment for terrorism offences, post-sentence orders to be made. Those orders are either continuing detention orders or community-based extended supervision orders. The hope is to be able to discuss the INSLM’s final report relating to this review.  If that is not possible, a review of themes the INSLM pursued in public hearings and a discussion of points pressed by submission writers alongside relevant case law will be presented. Prominent themes in this review have included: (i) whether an object of offender rehabilitation should be added to the current sole object of community protection in s 105A.1, (ii) the role of risk assessment and expert evidence in post-sentence order proceedings, and, (iii) whether other orders may be more appropriate in some cases including mental health orders under State or Territory law or control orders under the Criminal Code (Cth).