NCJ Number
166660
Date Published
1996
Length
82 pages
Annotation
The Brisbane Central Committals Project (BCCP), established to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of court committal proceedings in Queensland, Australia, is evaluated in terms of process, impact, and cost.
Abstract
The process evaluation showed the number of cases processed through the BCCP was substantially higher than had been anticipated. More than one-third of matters proceeding as committals were dealt with by a hand-up brief on Committal Mention Day. Complaints from magistrates, police, and the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP), however, indicated that some witnesses were required to attend committal hearings unnecessarily. Police arresting officers also complained of having to prepare full briefs, only for matters to result in a plea or to proceed by way of an ex officio indictment. Due to high staff turnover and workload pressures, the ODPP had difficulty in complying with certain committal protocols. Legal practitioners were largely positive in their views of the BCCP and the role of the ODPP. The extent to which legal aid funding practices impacted BCCP operation was not clear. The impact evaluation showed a significant decline in the proportion of matters initially mentioned for committal which proceeded as committals for trial. The proportion of cases in which the defendant indicated an intention to plead guilty at or prior to committal increased by about 180 percent, due largely to a marked rise in the use of ex officio indictment procedures. The cost evaluation demonstrated the BCCP generated direct time savings for the Queensland Police Service in the amount of $524,000. These savings primarily resulted from reduced investigating officer time because more matters were finalized by ex officio indictments. Depending on which estimates were used for the ODPP, the BCCP as a whole generated overall net savings in direct time inputs of $20,600 and a net cost of $73,100. Continuation of the BCCP is recommended since the project has achieved significant positive outcomes in committal proceedings and has resulted in substantial savings in police time by reducing demands on police prosecutors and police investigating officers. Ways of improving BCCP effectiveness are suggested, and guidelines for the design and evaluation of future similar projects are presented. 19 references, 40 footnotes, 7 tables, and 13 figures