The Community Based Sentences (Transfer) Bill 2012 was introduced into Parliament today. The legislation proposes amending the Sentencing Act 1991 so that offenders subject to a CCO are able to transfer their sentence interstate where it will be monitored by the equivalent of Corrections Victoria, and for offenders from other jurisdictions to move to Victoria and be monitored by Corrections Victoria here.

Just about every other state in Australia has enacted similar legislation, in some cases quite a few years ago, but Victoria has lagged behind. (Though I believe that Corrections Victoria has had an administrative process to achieve the same results in the absence of legislation. Generally, an offender subject to a CCO is not permitted to leave Victoria, and Corrections won’t generally consider granting that permission for the first 3 months of an order or during an intensive compliance period.

The legislation doesn’t provide for international transfer — though a person might obtain permission to travel overseas for a period of time — so folks moving overseas for a lengthy time but anticipating an eventual return to Oz either have to defer travel, or apply to either revoke or vary the order.