Well when I think that focusing on the role of those topics would mean their purpose, so for instance the purpose or ‘role’ of law reform is to keep up with the needs of society. So if you introduce that idea in your intro and keep linking back to it in your bodies, and conclusion, you should be covering that well enough
If you did write that, this could possibly be a case of teacher’s marking you harshly to ensure you’re not too comfortable before hsc comes
EDIT: Speaking of discretion, what would be a good essay plan for a question regarding the role of discretion in the cjs?
For an essay on the role of discretion in the cjs, the easiest way and most effective way to go in terms of getting a broad discussion would be to have a paragraph on the CIP, CTP and S&P.
And then within each paragraph, for example the CIP you could talk about points such as:
- police powers (their application of discretion)
- reporting of crime --> main role in this is that of the public, whose only 'power' is discretion (choosing whether or not to report a crime). This becomes an issue though with under-reporting on certain types of crimes (sexual assault, domestic violence) because of assumptions that reporting won't lead to arrest/conviction (NSW Bureau of Crime Stats and Research [2006] - 90% of reported sexual assaults resulted in no conviction) and so up to 85% of sexual assaults in Australia are not reported. Organisations such as Crime Stoppers however encourage public reporting of crime ... so I suppose you could find some stats on the reporting of crime through that method as a way of fixing the ineffectiveness of the role of discretion in reporting of crime.
- gathering evidence --> essentially all up to the police and their use of their powers, so discretion inevitable becomes a factor (whether it is effective or ineffective). So for this section you could talk about R v Wood (demonstrated ineffective use of police discretion in gathering evidence, leading to unfair trial)
- use of technology --> again, major involvement of police and their use of their powers. So one interesting thing I came across was police hacking powers (provided through their capability for covert searches). This type of power is obviously super controversial because it impedges on key human rights such as the right to privacy etc. Thus police discretion is super important -- but it's limited by the fact that only a specific officer can get a warrant from a specific eligible judge for this power, and even with that their application needs to demonstrate suspicion or belief on reasonable grounds that a terrorist act has been/is likely to be commited, that searching a premises (or whatever else) will likely prevent this and that it's necessary that the search has to be conducted without the occupier's knowledge. Also, after 10 days of the search the office has to report back to the judge and essentially detail EVERYTHING. So its good that certain meausures have been put in place for powers like this where discretion is obviously going to affect how the power will be used (usually a bad effect), and so discretion is limited for effectiveness.
- use of warrants: as mentioned above, limit police discretion but result in judicial discretion
- DVEC (used in domestic violence investigations) --> limits the discretion of victims/witnesses as police can digitally record victims statement in situ so that justice can be achieved in the trial wherein the victim may not be willing to provide correct information.
- bail: judicial discretion, but the reforms in Bail Act limit judicial discretion (I may be wrong, you might have to check over this). Restrictions have also been placed in granting bail for offences such as drug trafficking/domestic violence and even limit the chance of suspected terrorists of getting bail (Terrorism Act amendment 2017).
So these are some things specific for the CIP, but you would continue for the other sections of the CJS, according to the syllabus (because it honestly makes it so much easier to just pack in information into your paragraphs imo).
Hope this helps
(also sorry if I've just repeated what other people have already posted, this took forever to write up
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