Sentencing for social supply of illicit drugs in Australia

In Australia, threshold quantities of illicit drugs act as an indicator of supply offences in distinguishing traffickers from users. This is problematic because it can be difficult for the courts to discriminate between heavy users or ‘social suppliers’ and ‘dealers proper’. Currently, there is no systematic analysis of how the judiciary in Australia navigate the relationship between different types of supply and the consistency and proportionality of the sentence applied. This analysis maps out how current sentencing practices respond to offenders involved in ‘social supply’ and ‘minimally commercial supply’ who are charged with drug trafficking. It makes recommendations that could inform future drug law reform, including that review is needed of the system of thresholds; that sentencing objectives of general and specific deterrence be reconsidered in cases of social supply and minimally commercial supply; and that consideration be given to expanding the scope of current diversion programs to accommodate the needs of the types of offenders and offending behaviour addressed in this study.

The Classic Military Response in Perspective

Chapter 6 assesses Israel’s success in applying the classic defense doctrine to the threats it has faced and its relevance today. The record is mixed. Much remains applicable, but numerous changes have taken place, including the addition of defense as a “fourth pillar,” along with deterrence, early warning, and military decision. Israel’s strategic and cumulative deterrence have proven highly successful, its current and specific deterrence somewhat. Israel only succeeded in achieving military decision in a few cases, but even then insufficiently to dictate terms. None of the operations against Hezbollah and Hamas have ended satisfactorily; most did not achieve significant deterrence or a prolonged lull. Without major ground maneuver, which Israel usually cannot conduct today, military decision is hard to achieve, will likely be more costly than the threats irregular actors pose, is beyond Israel’s capabilities against distant states, for example, Iran, and meaningless at the nuclear level.

Searching for Deterrence at the International Criminal Court

Does the International Criminal Court (icc) deter acts of violence in the world? To answer this question, this article first distinguishes between three phenomena that are often confusingly grouped together under the heading of ‘deterrence’. These include the termination of ongoing civil wars (compellence), the prevention of atrocity crime recidivism (specific deterrence), and the overall prevention of war and atrocity crimes (general deterrence). The article then assesses whether state commitments to the Rome Statute and icc intervention in specific contexts can promote these three aims. It presents evidence that the icc can indeed contribute to violence prevention, though not because of its ability to sanction abusive actors. Instead, the Court’s role as a ‘stigmatizer’ in the international community has likely contributed to declines in certain types of violence over time. As such, the article concludes that the icc is more important for what it is than what it does.

Police and Offender Choices

Police influence on offender choices has largely been described in terms of general and specific deterrence. This chapter expands this description by examining the quantity and quality of police influences. With regard to quantity, theory and research from environmental criminology have described a rich set of influences that have direct and indirect effects on offenders. Indirect influences operate through various third parties and by manipulating crime situations. With regard to quality, theory and research from a wide variety of disciplines show that how the police behave with offenders has an influence on offender choices. Four principles are particularly important for quality: the degrees to which the police appear to be reasonable, disarming, focused, and consistent. Expanding our understanding of how police can influence offender choices provides useful areas for research and opens a wide range of possibilities for improving police effectiveness and fairness in addressing crime.