The Sentence Administration Board (SAB) are responsible for making decisions about an offender’s sentence, such as whether they should be released on parole. The SAB must consider your views when making certain decisions, and tell you about the outcomes of those decisions.
If the SAB is making a decision to grant an offender parole or release, they must tell the victims of the offender about the process, and tell them how they can make submissions to the board. Once they have made a decision, they must take reasonable steps to tell the victim about this decision, and give them details such as the offender’s release date and their parole obligations.
As a victim of crime, you can make submissions to the SAB about your concerns about an offender’s sentence. This means that you can tell the SAB if you have a concern about violence or harassment from the offender if they were released.
If you think that the Sentence Administration Board have not respected your rights as a victim of crime, you should call the ACT Human Rights Commission on (02) 6205 2222.
There are some exceptions to these rights, but our team can talk to you about your particular situation and help you to decide if you should make a victims rights complaint.
You can find more information about the particular rights that the Sentence Administration Board must respect on the Victims Support ACT website: https://www.victimsupport.act.gov.au/victims-rights/justice-agencies-and-their-obligations/sentence-administration-board or in the Victims of Crime Act 1994 (ACT) https://www.legislation.act.gov.au/View/a/1994-83/current/PDF/1994-83.PDF.