Breaches of bail resulting in arrest have hit a three-year high in the ACT.
The new peak arrived as the police association and the ACT Liberals seek to have the standalone offence reinstated in legislation.
The latest 12-monthly police data revealed breaches of bail reached 1204 from June 30, 2023 to July 1 this year, up from 1106 in the corresponding 12-month period and 940 in the year before, in which offence numbers and types were significantly COVID-affected.
The latest 12-month breaches were just four less than were recorded in 2020-21.
And 274 people of those failed to appear in court after signing bail undertakings, which would automatically result in an arrest warrant being issued.
Electronic monitoring deferred again
The most senior members of ACT police have long regarded the presumption of bail in the ACT as a frustration for their officers, who are re-arresting the same people time and again.
With the introduction of electronic monitoring again deferred for more study until at least next year, magistrates are given limited options to correct repeat breaches other than imposing jail time.
Should breaching bail be made an offence, an intensive corrections order could be an alternative. But these orders, too, are breached on a regular basis, with the most recent data from the Sentence Administration Board revealing a 58 per cent increase.
Section 8 of the Bail Act provides for entitlement to bail for certain minor offences, including for offences not punishable by imprisonment and offences punishable by imprisonment for not longer than six months.
But section 9 of the Bail Act removes the entitlement to bail if the person has previously failed to comply with an undertaking to appear, or a bail condition imposed, in relation to the same or similar offence.
Meanwhile, magistrates are empowered, through their discretion, to rule under section 22 or 23 of the Bail Act, which requires considering the likelihood of certain things occurring such as the person appearing in court or committing an offence.
That decision is informed by matters like the nature and seriousness of the offence, the person's character, background and community ties, and any previous grants of bail.
While a draft report from the Assembly committee's recent inquiry into the administration of bail is understood to be prepared, ACT Greens leader and Attorney-General Shane Rattenbury has referred assessment of the Bail Act to the Law Reform and Sentencing Advisory Council, which is not due to hand down its findings until after the ACT election in October.
In February this year, police arrested a 15-year-old boy for the fourth time in seven weeks following a dangerous driving incident involving a stolen Skoda Octavia.
The same boy had previously been involved in a crash which injured another driver in late December 2022 in which he was charged with seven offences. A few weeks before he had been involved in another vehicle pursuit, arrested and charged with 13 offences.
"One result of the current approach to sentencing and granting of bail by the ACT courts is recidivism, as the punishments being handed down by the courts is not a deterrent for these offenders," the police submission to the bail inquiry said.
"Bail conditions are often unenforceable - for example, curfews without a condition to present to police when compliance action is being conducted or conditions prohibiting drug and alcohol use but no condition to submit to drug and alcohol screening."
In the first four months of this year alone, police data revealed there were 515 people on bail for domestic- or family violence-related offences.
"If a presumption against bail for family violence offences was not supported, the Bail Act should at least acknowledge, and require the magistrate to consider, that fixated family violence offenders are unlikely to comply with bail conditions, no matter how strict, especially if they have a previous occurrence of breaching family violence orders," the police said.
