The shifting moral compass: Post-sentence detention of sex offenders in Australia

In April 2010, the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) handed down its decision in relation to complaints lodged by Robert Fardon and Kenneth Tillman. Fardon and Tillman complained that their continuing detention in a prison cell pursuant to legislation allowing preventive detention for serious sexual offenders in Queensland and New South Wales was punitive, and thus offended the principle of double jeopardy. In making its decision in favour of the complainants, the UNHRC discussed the nature of punitive detention and focused its attention on access to treatment and the type of accommodation provided to Fardon and Tillman. This article provides an overview of the decision of the UNHRC and then analyses recent Australian preventive detention cases to explore these two issues