Sentencing Young Offenders: A Comparative Study of Tasmania, Victoria and New South Wales

This project seeks to compares how children's courts sentence young offenders in three Australian states: Tasmania, Victoria and New South Wales.

The first stage of the project in Tasmania was completed in 2005, supported by an IRGS grant. The second stage in Victoria is being conducted during 2008. The third stage in NSW will be conducted in 2009.

The project uses qualitative methods, including courtroom observation, and interviewing practitioners. In Tasmania, it also proved possible to obtain audio-files of hearings.

There are three objectives:

• to describe and document professional work in the courts in a way that will interest a general audience through drawing on concepts, methods and theoretical resources in symbolic interactionism and ethnomethodology
• to contribute to policy debates about juvenile justice by identifying differences in shared values, the special problems faced by particular courts, and the resources available to practitioners that explain variations in detention rates
• to advance an interpretive position within the fields of criminology and criminal justice, as an alternative to both positivism and critical realism