Assaults on emergency services workers

On 27 July 2020, the Attorney General asked us to review the sentencing for offences involving assaults on police officers, correctional staff, youth justice officers, emergency services workers and health workers. 

Report

We transmitted our Report: Assaults on emergency services workers (PDF, 1.4 MB) to the Attorney General on 28 July 2021. It was released on 1 October 2021.

The NSW Government provided a response (PDF, 398.4 KB) on 8 April 2022.

Some recommendations in the report were adopted by the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Assaults on Frontline Emergency and Health Workers) Act 2022 which was passed on 11 October 2022. The reforms came into effect on 18 October 2022.

Other documents

The following documents were part of the consultation process for our Report:

• Submissions (responding to the terms of reference and the background information)
• Background information

Terms of reference

We received the following terms of reference on 27 July 2020:

The Sentencing Council is to review the sentencing for offences involving assaults on police officers, correctional staff, youth justice officers, emergency services workers and health workers and make recommendations for any reform it considers appropriate.

In undertaking the review, the Sentencing Council should consider:

• recent trends in assaults on these workers and in sentencing decisions
• characteristics of offenders, including characteristics of reoffending offenders
• sentencing options to deter this behaviour
• sentencing options to reduce reoffending
• a comparison of NSW sentencing decisions for assaults on these workers with equivalent sentencing decisions in other Australian jurisdictions
• a comparison of NSW sentencing decisions for assaults on these workers with equivalent sentencing decisions for assaults generally
• sentencing principles applied by NSW courts; and
• any other matter the Council considers relevant.