What it does
The Serious Offenders Act 2018 (Vic) establishes a comprehensive post-sentence preventive detention and supervision regime for "eligible offenders" who have completed custodial sentences for serious sex offences (listed in Schedule 1) or serious violence offences (listed in Schedule 2). Its primary purpose, stated in s 1(a), is "enhanced protection of the community" by subjecting such offenders to ongoing detention or supervision where they pose an "unacceptable risk" of committing further serious sex offences, serious violence offences, or both if released without controls. Secondary purposes (s 1(b)) include facilitating treatment and rehabilitation, while s 1(c) repealed the predecessor Serious Sex Offenders (Detention and Supervision) Act 2009 and made consequential amendments.
The Act operates through a tiered system of court-made orders. Supervision orders (Part 3) and interim supervision orders (Part 4) impose core conditions (s 31) plus tailored conditions (ss 34-38), including residence at a residential facility (s 34), intensive treatment and supervision conditions requiring residence at a residential treatment facility (s 32, with mandatory electronic monitoring and accompaniment rules), firearms prohibitions (ss 37, 50), and Authority-authorised directions (s 36, including new s 36A inserted by No 28/2025). Detention orders (Part 5), interim detention orders (Part 6) and emergency detention orders (Part 7) authorise prison detention, with the latter available on an ex parte basis where altered circumstances create an "imminent risk" (s 89) and no less restrictive means exist.
Risk assessment is central. For a supervision order, the court must be satisfied to a high degree of probability on acceptable, cogent evidence that the offender poses (or will pose on release) an unacceptable risk (s 14(1), (3)). The test is explicitly not "more likely than not" (s 14(4)). For detention orders, the court applies a two-stage test: first the unacceptable risk finding (s 63), then a determination that the risk "would be unacceptable unless a detention order were made" (s 64(1)), allowing regard to management means and impact on the offender only at the second stage (s 64(3)). Community safety is the paramount consideration in all decisions (s 5).