WA Chief Justice Wayne Martin warns against harsh jail terms

WA’S outgoing Chief Justice has warned against handing out harsh penalties to domestic violence perpetrators, saying many victims don’t want their attackers to go to jail.

In his last week as WA’s top judge, Wayne Martin shared his views on the dangers of using an “overly punitive approach” to tackle the rising scourge of domestic violence, saying it could backfire and reinforce many women’s reluctance to report the violence they suffer at the hands of their partners.

“One of the big problems with domestic violence is the very low report rates ... and you can’t do anything about a problem you don’t know about,” Chief Justice Martin told The Sunday Times in a wide-ranging farewell interview this week after 12 years as the State’s leading jurist.

“A system that is attractive to victims is very likely to encourage people to report. And if people report something you can actually do something about it.

“Which is why we’ve also got to be cautious of overly punitive approaches in the area of domestic violence, because it’s natural that people say, ‘Oh domestic violence, terrible, we should stamp it out, let’s impose really harsh penalties’.

“But the problem with that is a lot of victims of domestic violence don’t want really harsh penalties, some do and that’s fair enough but some don’t.

“They don’t want their bloke to go to prison because who’s going to look after the kids? Who’s going to pay the rent? They just want the violence to stop. So if you increase the penalties that’s likely to discourage reporting.”

Chief Justice Martin said penalties for domestic violence crimes had increased in recent years, in line with a general rise in sentences.

“The prison population has doubled during my term as Chief Justice (currently at nearly 7000 inmates) so people are going to prison more often and for longer,” he said.

He said alcohol was present in most domestic violence cases, which often led to tragic consequences. “The misuse of alcohol in a domestic situation leads to escalating violence and somebody ends up dead,” he said.

Chief Justice Martin said the overcrowding crisis was preventing prison authorities from providing meaningful programs and services that could change behaviour because they have been “distracted by the simple need to provide beds”.

Specialised domestic violence courts were axed in WA in 2015 after the model was found to have failed to reduce reoffending rates.

Chief Justice Martin said though the name had gone, domestic violence courts continued in practical reality.

He believed analysis of the axed model had been flawed, with 93 per cent of victims enthusiastic about it.

Chief Justice Martin, who finished up on Friday, wants to see more investment into courts that “focus on the causes of crime rather than just the consequences”, similar to the drug court and Start Court for mentally ill offenders.