NCJ Number
174084
Date Published
1995
Length
110 pages
Annotation
A survey was conducted to assess the attitudes of judicial officers and legal representatives in New South Wales toward presentence reports to allow the Probation Service to effectively evaluate the Court Advice Program, a program managed by the New South Wales Prison Service to provide the courts with written and verbal presentence reports and bail assessments.
Abstract
The survey consisted of 39 questions that addressed the following issues: why judicial officers request presentence reports, evaluation of report quality, report content, report delivery, the role of the Probation Service and probation officers, the role of court duty officers, and proposals for changing the reports. The majority of judicial officers and legal representatives expressed a high level of satisfaction with the provision of presentence reports by the Probation Service. Judicial officers said they found written presentence reports clear and easy to understand, soundly based, and independent and also reported presentence reports assisted them in making their sentencing decisions. A few judicial officers, however, indicated biases in presentence reports were of some concern. These biases focused on the acceptance of unverified statements, inappropriate sentencing options, and reports being too sympathetic to offenders. Full and short presentence reports served quite discrete functions at sentencing. Full presentence reports were more likely to be requested when the judicial officer required a broad picture of the offender, while short presentence reports tended to be requested when the judicial officer required information about the availability of sentencing options. Background factors in full reports such as employment history, education, family background, and prior contact with the Probation Service were more useful to judges. Factors related to the availability of sentencing options were more useful to magistrates. Little support was received from either judicial officers or legal representatives for the inclusion of overt recommendations in presentence reports. Most judicial officers supported a pre-delivery proposal that would enable presentence reports to be seen by all parties prior to the sentencing hearing. Both judicial officers and legal representatives said they would generally like to have more detail in presentence reports about custodial and noncustodial sentencing options. Appendixes contain the survey form and additional information on the survey findings. 33 references, 25 tables, and 18 figures