The Remand Strategy: Assessing Outcomes

Abstract

The continuing increases in the numbers of people in prison because they have been refused bail, together with the differential rates at which people in the various Australian jurisdictions are remanded in custody, raise urgent questions about the use of custodial remand. Traditionally, such questions have been addressed by a focus on judicial decision-making. This article takes a step back from this rather narrow perspective and focuses, rather, on the purposes and outcomes of custodial remand in terms of justice policy. It explores desired policy goals and objectives, implementation systems and indicators of bail policies by a measure of their ‘effectiveness’. Remand in custody and its alternative, bail, are conceptualised in this paper as strategies. The article explores the purposes for which remand strategies are utilised, the effect of competing goals on remand decision-makers, and how achievements of the goals of custodial remand (and its alternatives) could be better measured.