Invisible Powers to Punish: Licensee-barring Order Provisions in Victoria and South Australia

Abstract

Problems associated with excessive alcohol consumption have prompted a range of legislative, regulatory and operational responses. One provision empowers licensees, in Australian jurisdictions such as Victoria and South Australia, to formally exclude patrons from their venues and the surrounding public area. The imposition of a licensee-barring order requires no demonstrable offence to be committed. No proof needs to be documented and the ban takes effect immediately. Non-compliance is subject to police enforcement and possible criminal breach proceedings. The process through which a barring order may be challenged can be ambiguous and time consuming, and the punishment is typically served regardless of the review outcome. However, limited data are available to enable assessment of the way in which barring orders are used. As such, this paper examines how licensee-barring orders extend to non-judicial and non-law enforcement officers an on-the-spot and pre-emptive power to punish. Yet, with no formal training, monitoring or meaningful oversight of their use, barring orders are open to abuse and constitute a summary power to punish that is opaque to scrutiny.

Creative Commons License
Except where otherwise noted, content in this journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Published: 2019-02-18
Pages:70 to 84
Section:Articles
Fetching Scopus statistics
Fetching Web of Science statistics
How to Cite
Farmer, C. (2019) “Invisible Powers to Punish: Licensee-barring Order Provisions in Victoria and South Australia”, International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 8(1), pp. 70-84. doi: 10.5204/ijcjsd.v8i1.1038.

Author Biography

Deakin University
 Australia

Dr Clare Farmer is a Lecturer in Criminology at Deakin University, Geelong, Australia. Her research interests include the use/abuse of police powers, individual rights, sentencing practices, and expectations of justice across the criminal process.