VIC: Homeless males refused bail, new study shows

AAP General News (Australia)
08-20-1999
VIC: Homeless males refused bail, new study shows

MELBOURNE, Aug 20 AAP - Young first-time male offenders are being jailed with hardened
criminals for at least a month before facing court simply because they are homeless, a new
study released today has found.

The study, commissioned by the Jesuit Social Services, found homeless men were refused bail
on first-time offences such as car theft because they could not name a fixed address.

Often, at the end of a month's imprisonment, they were found not guilty.

The release of the study follows a stand-off at a prison in eastern Victoria yesterday in
which inmates, who were protesting over overcrowding, were tear-gassed.

The former director-general of the New South Wales prison system, Professor Tony Vincent,
said the study, which examined 40 men aged 17 to 24 in the criminal justice system, found 73
per cent on remand had left the family home by the age of 16.

"The suspicion was there, and now it's documented, that some people might be locked up for
no greater reason than the absence of ties back to the community," Prof Vincent said while
launching the report.

"Is it necessary, just because someone's impoverished, young, perhaps cut off from family,
without a regular place of residence, that that should automatically result in that person's
exclusion from bail?"

Young offenders held in maximum security, such in as the Melbourne Custody Centre where all
men awaiting court are kept together, meant they were exposed to "experienced old hands", he
said.

Jesuit Social Services director, Father Peter Norden, said lawyers regularly rang the
Jesuits' Brosnan Centre, which helps young offenders after their release from prison.

He said they would inform the centre they had a young person facing court who would get
bail if they could name an abode.

But, he said, it was beyond the centres' resources to cope with such demands.

The study, a thesis for a master's degree written by Mary Alice Kiely at La Trobe
University, offered three alternatives to jailing first-time offenders while they await a
court appearance.

These were a bail hostel, which Mr Vincent said has been successfully used in the UK,
electronic surveillance or reform of the court system to speed up trials.

Father Norden said the ideal outcome would be the establishment of bail hostels throughout
the country.

The study will be distributed to attorneys-general, premiers and federal Justice Minister
Amanda Vanstone.

AAP hmg/er/was/br

KEYWORD: BAIL

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