A study of presentence psychiatric reports in Tasmania

Psychiatric involvement in the criminal justice system in Australia is an area from which little empirical research has emanated. Concluding a brief examination of the numbers of psychiatric presentence reports requested by Victorian Judges, Bartholomew and Milte (1977)* concluded, "... it is necessary at this time to find out which offences the 983 psychiatric pre-sentence reports referred to in this article were concerned. How many were concerned with violence? How many reports made recommendations to the court of a specific type? If a specific recommendation was made in the report was it adopted by the court? Did courts not requesting pre-sentence psychiatric reports sentence in any significantly different manner to those who did request such reports? It is with this type of question in mind that we publish this small piece of research in the hope that it will lead to a larger undertaking which may answer some of the questions posed here." Not only was my research designed to answer this sort of question, but it also provided the opportunity to examine other aspects of the criminal process such as the judicial behaviour of judges and magistrates, the changing role of females in the criminal process and the after conduct of offenders receiving psychiatric treatment. Tasmania is a very suitable place for criminological research. It is comparatively isolated, small and the records are accessible and relatively manageable. I hope that my findings will provide some ideas and impetus for further research as well as implications for present action. * Bartholomew, A. A. and Milte, K. L. "Victorian judges and the psychiatric pre-sentence report". The Australian & New Zealand journal of criminology, 1977, 10, 121