The Victorian government has announced it will ban the use of good character references in criminal sentencing, ending a long-standing legal practice that defence lawyers have used to argue for reduced jail terms on behalf of convicted offenders. The reform, driven by Premier Jacinta Allan's government, represents one of the more direct political interventions into sentencing practice seen in Victoria in recent years.
Good character references, typically submitted as written testimonials from employers, family members, or community figures, have been a standard feature of sentencing proceedings across Australian courts. Judges and magistrates weigh them alongside other mitigating factors when determining the appropriate penalty. The Allan government's position is that the practice allows offenders to benefit from personal connections and social standing in ways that may not reflect the seriousness of their conduct or serve the interests of victims.
From a law-and-order perspective, the policy has a clear rationale. Accountability is a foundational principle of any credible justice system, and concerns that well-connected defendants can soften their sentences through a parade of supportive testimonials are not without substance. Victims and their advocates have long questioned why an offender's standing in their local football club or church community should bear on the punishment handed down for serious crimes. The government appears to be responding directly to that frustration.
The reform also fits within a pattern of state governments, across the political spectrum, responding to perceived leniency in the courts. As reported by the Sydney Morning Herald, the ban is part of the Allan government's broader approach to criminal justice, one that has increasingly emphasised community safety and victim-centred outcomes as organising principles.
The legal community, however, has raised serious objections. Defence lawyers and civil liberties advocates argue that removing character references strips courts of important contextual information. Sentencing, they contend, has always been an individualised exercise: the same offence can be committed in vastly different circumstances, by vastly different people, and the law has traditionally allowed judges to reflect that complexity in the penalties they impose.
The Sentencing Advisory Council of Victoria has previously documented how a range of mitigating factors, including remorse, rehabilitation efforts, and community ties, contribute to proportionate outcomes. Critics of the ban argue that removing one element of that framework risks producing sentences that are uniform in appearance but uneven in justice. A first-time offender with genuine community support and strong prospects for rehabilitation is not the same as a repeat offender with no such ties, even if their crimes are identical on paper.
There is also a constitutional dimension worth considering. Sentencing discretion has traditionally been regarded as a core function of the judiciary under the Australian Constitution's separation of powers framework. While state parliaments have broad authority to prescribe sentencing parameters, reforms that significantly constrain judicial discretion can attract scrutiny from courts and legal scholars alike. Whether this ban crosses any such threshold remains to be tested.
Progressive voices have raised a different concern: that character references, far from being a tool of privilege, can actually benefit defendants from marginalised communities who might otherwise appear before a court with little formal support. Community elders, culturally significant figures, and local leaders sometimes provide the only substantive evidence of a defendant's personal circumstances. Removing that mechanism, some argue, could disproportionately harm those with fewer resources to mount a robust legal defence through other means.
The Victorian Victorian Legal Aid service and the broader public defender network are likely to face added pressure as the reform takes effect, given that their clients tend to rely more heavily on character evidence when formal documentation of their circumstances is limited.
What this episode reveals, at its core, is a genuine tension between two legitimate values: the community's interest in consistent, accountable punishment, and the justice system's commitment to treating each person before it as an individual. Both of those values have a strong claim on democratic societies, and reasonable people land in different places when they are forced to choose between them.
The Allan government's reform may well prove popular with voters who feel courts have been too lenient. Whether it produces better justice outcomes, rather than simply tougher-sounding ones, will depend on how it operates in practice and whether the courts find ways to accommodate the information that character references once carried through other means. That is worth watching closely as the policy beds in.