Procedure - Sentence Calculation

4. Roles and Responsibilities

1. scanning court documentation to the IOMS offender record;
2. calculating the offender's sentence to accurately reflect the period of imprisonment, fulltime discharge date, custodial end date, and where applicable, early discharge date and parole release or eligibility date;
3. recording of remand and court appearances;
4. creating and checking pre-sentence custody certificates;
5. liaising with courts to resolve issues with documentation provided by the courts that impact an offender's lawful detention; and
6. managing bring up systems associated with the discharge / release of prisoners and court appearances.
7. support through coaching and mentoring is to occur at the correctional centre level by centre staff.

For additional support when required contact SentenceCalcuationReferral@dcs.qld.gov.au

When an offender is either initially admitted into custody, as a sentenced offender or as a remand prisoner:

The Reception Store Supervisor is responsible to-

1. Receive the order from the court that orders the prisoner's imprisonment;
2. Receive the order issued from either a court or the State Penalties Enforcement Registry (SPER) for an offender who is required to serve imprisonment in default of the payment of a fine/s.

Refer procedure - Admission

When an offender is returned to custody upon the suspension or cancellation of a parole order, or after the apprehension of an offender following the offender's escape from QCS custody:

The Reception Store Supervisor is responsible to-

1. Receive the executed warrant issued by the relevant authority.
2. Confirm the currency of the warrant and liaise with the sentence management unit to ensure that the offender has been lawfully returned to custody and can be detained based on orders of imprisonment previously imposed by a court and as recorded on IOMS.

Refer administrative form - Information for Reception Officers

5. Managing files, records and documents

Refer procedure - Offender File Management (in-confidence)

The Queensland Police Service Watch House List must be carefully scrutinised by officers nominated by the General Manager to ascertain whether any listed offender has previously been supervised by QCS and if so, the receiving centre must contact central archives to request the hard copy files.

Where an offender on parole is returned to secure custody on remand for other matters, but prior to the parole order being suspended, the Senior Advisor, Sentence Management at the correctional centre the offender is admitted to, must liaise with the District Manager of the Probation and Parole Office to arrange for the immediate transfer of the offender's file.

Should an offender arrive at a centre without their offender file, the offender may be admitted into the correctional centre provided that the reception officer can confirm that-

1. The IOMS - Sentence Calculation and, Warrants and Offences screens, record that the offender is able to be legally detained in custody and that:
2. The correctional centre's Sentence Management Team organises the immediate retrieval of those hard copy documents.
3. If necessary it can be requested that copies of the offender's orders of imprisonment are scanned and emailed.

When an offender is transferred from one centre to another, the offender's physical file containing the relevant orders of imprisonment required to detain the offender, must accompany the offender to the receiving centre. Should an offender arrive without their offender file, the offender may be admitted into the correctional centre providing-

1. The reception officer can confirm that IOMS - Sentence Calculation and, Warrants and Offences screens, record that the offender is able to be legally detained in custody and that
2. The correctional centre's Sentence Management Team organises the immediate retrieval of those hard copy documents.

Whenever a file moves between locations, the transfer must be recorded on Recfind.

5.1 Filing of orders of imprisonment and sentencing transcripts

All orders of imprisonment are to be placed on the offender file. They should not be removed. The only exception is when an original order is returned to court for a correction. In these instances a duplicate copy must temporarily replace that order on the offender physical file.

Each order is to be clearly numbered, in the top right hand corner with the charge number as it appears on the sentence calculation report. Remand warrants are also to be numbered preceded by the letter R.

Where an order or remand warrant is replaced by another, the original order or remand warrant is to be ruled through and marked “replaced” and attached to the new order.

Where an order is changed because of an appeal, the original order is to be ruled through and marked “refer to attached appeal order”.

A sentencing transcript and QP9 must be filed with the relevant verdict and judgment record. Other sentencing documents, including pre-sentence custody certificates, are to be filed on the offender file but not integrated with the actual orders of imprisonment. They should, however, be cross-referred to the relevant orders of imprisonment such as, e.g. “this document refers to [charge 8 or charges 8 to 10].

In addition to ensuring all original sentence administration documentation is filed correctly on the offender's hard copy file, these documents (with the exception of QP9s) are also to be scanned and attached to the offender's Electronic IOMS file within the Sentence Administration Attachments section. All superseded orders are to be deleted from within this attachments section.

Refer procedure - Offender File Management (in-confidence)

Refer administrative form - IOMS Document Attachment Naming Conventions

5.2 Filing of other sentencing documents

All documents relating to an offender's sentencing must be placed on the offender's physical file and a scanned copy placed on the offender electronic IOMS record under the Sentence Administration Attachments section. Those documents will include but are not limited to:

1. presentence custody certificates
2. bail papers
3. recognizance orders
4. Form QP9 (not scanned to IOMS )
5. sentencing transcripts
6. any document in relation to an offender's appeal
7. any correspondence to or from a court or prosecuting authority in relation to an offender's sentencing
8. any document in relation to an offender's immigration or extradition status
9. interstate transfer documents including documents relating to the registration of an interstate parole order in Queensland.

Refer procedure - Offender File Management (in-confidence)

6. Process

The Sentence Calculation and Administration Manual outlines the sentence calculations required when an offender is initially admitted into custody, returned to custody upon the suspension or cancellation of a parole order, or apprehended following escape from QCS custody.

Documents from court:

Refer Sentence Calculation and Administration Manual Part 1.1

Warrants issued by QCS or the Parole Board

Refer Sentence Calculation and Administration Manual Part 1.1

Refer procedure - Admission

Refer administrative form - Information for Reception Officers

7. Warrants and Offences

All orders of imprisonment, including remand warrants issued by a court or orders of imprisonment in default of the payment of fines must be recorded in IOMS - Warrants and Offences.

Warrants must be scanned and attached to the offender's IOMS record. Scanning and attaching sentence administration documentation by sentence management staff is to occur as soon as possible from receipt of the documents. Guidelines for the method of entering data into IOMS - Warrants and Offences are located on the IOMS Learning Material pages - Enter Warrants

For information pertaining to orders that do not detain a person in QCS custody refer Sentence Calculation and Administration Manual Part 1.1

When entering an order or warrant into IOMS, particular care must be given to the matters below.

Offence coding

Where the wording of the charge does not directly relate to an approved offence code, staff must refer to the Act and Section that the charge was made under. If the details are still unclear, the matter is to be referred to the Supervisor, Sentence Management Unit who may then refer it to the prosecuting authority.

An offence is only to be coded as “offence otherwise unknown” as a last resort. The Supervisor, Sentence Administration Unit must be notified prior to this action being taken.

If the offence constitutes an offence type that is not currently provided for in IOMS, refer the matter to the Supervisor, Sentence Management Unit for resolution.

The Sentence Management Unit, in consultation with Operational Support Services and Information Management, will coordinate the addition of new offence codes in IOMS.

IOMS offence codes, refer Sentence Calculation and Administration Manual Part 6.6

Offence details

The offence details field is to include the date and place of the offence/s as well as other remarks about the offence such as whether it was an “attempted” offence or an offence “with aggravating circumstances”. If an offence is coded as “offence otherwise unknown”, the actual wording of the charge must be recorded in the offence details field.

Offence flags

The sentence calculation officer at the correctional centre is responsible for ensuring appropriate offence flags have been activated. The Supervisors within the Sentence Administration Unit are to check the accuracy of the set flags during the verification of the sentence calculation.

1. The SVO flag is activated for those offences that are formally declared to be a serious violent offence by a court or where section 161B(2) of the Penalties and Sentences Act 1992 applies.
2. The cumulative sentence flag is activated when:-
   
   
   1. a cumulative order is made by the court; or
   2. an offender is sentenced to terms/s of imprisonment for offences relating to fail to appear under section 33 of the Bail Act 1980, unless the court orders otherwise; or
   3. an offender is required to serve an order/s of imprisonment in default of the payment of Queensland State fines which were committed on or after 23 July 1993, unless the court orders otherwise.
   
   
3. The section 305(2) sentence flag is only activated when an offender is convicted of more than one offence of murder at the one time and the court has not fixed a parole eligibility date.
4. The Scheduled Sex Offence flag is automatically activated when entering the details of an offence that is listed in Schedule One of the Corrective Services Act 2006 (CSA).
5. The Youthful Offender flag must be activated when an offender is admitted who is under 18 years of age. This flag must be deactivated when this offender turns eighteen.
6. For the High Profile and Notorious flags refer procedure - Assessment (section 2.17)

Entering Aliases

When processing court and police documents, always enter aliases on these documents into IOMS to assist with further matching of the offender and documents from other agencies. This should be completed during reception or following receipt of further information.

8. Calculating the orders of imprisonment imposed

The calculation of an offender's sentence must be completed in accordance with the guidelines and rules provided in the Sentence Calculation and Administration Manual

8.1 Manual calculation

Where a sentence calculation is complex involving multiple sentences and/or variants the officer calculating the sentence is to complete a manual sentence calculation prior to calculating the sentence in IOMS. The manual calculation is to determine:

1. the period of imprisonment;
2. the full-time discharge date;
3. the custodial end date if applicable;
4. the default parole eligibility date if required; and
5. the terms of imprisonment that must be included in the sentence structure to achieve those outcomes.

A manual calculation will also assist in identifying the calculation of periods of time not served and pre-sentence custody to be applied against the applicable term of imprisonment.

Manual calculations for simple sentences such as single orders would be limited to a mathematical calculation of the period of imprisonment, the fulltime and custodial end dates and, if applicable, the calculation of the default parole date. More complex sentences such as those including multiple terms of imprisonment, various cumulative directions and the application of variants require a detailed “time-line” type calculation.

The manual calculation is to be retained with the sentence calculation report on the offender's file to assist the checking officer and for subsequent review and audit processes.

9. Cross-checking of the sentencing transcript

When an offender is convicted and sentenced by a District or Supreme Court, the verdict and judgment record issued by the court is to be cross-checked against the sentencing transcript. In cases where an offender has appealed against their conviction and/or sentence, a copy of the Order of Appeal and transcript is to be obtained from the Queensland Supreme Court of Appeal.

Refer Sentence Calculation and Administration Manual Part 1.14

Correctional centre staff are responsible for monitoring the receipt of court transcripts, including those issued by Court of Appeal. Staff are to use the IOMS Events Manager to ensure the timely receipt and follow up of these documents. Staff are to use the IOMS Event Manager - Offender Administration Event Category to set a date one month into the future, unless discharge or transfer to probation and parole supervision is to occur prior to that date to follow up outstanding transcripts.

Until the cross-check is completed, the sentence calculation report is to be annotated, “sentence is subject to validation with the sentencing transcript”. A sentencing transcript is to be formally requested if it is not received within one-month of sentencing. However, if less than one month is remaining before the offender is to be discharged or transferred to probation and parole supervision, the request must be made immediately.

Refer administrative form - Request for Sentencing Transcript

Upon receipt of the sentencing transcript correctional centre staff are to scan and attach this document to the offender's IOMS record. When the verdict and judgment record is checked as correct against the sentencing transcript, the sentence calculation report is to be annotated to that effect by correctional centre staff and a notification forwarded to the relevant Supervisor within the Sentence Administration Unit.

If the sentencing transcript differs from the verdict and judgment record the matter must be referred immediately to the Office of Public Prosecutions prosecuting authority.

Refer Sentence Calculation and Administration Manual Part 1.13

Refer administrative form - IOMS Document Attachment Naming Convention

10. Court reports

If the sentencing transcript records that the court has ordered that a report be provided to Queensland Corrective Services and it has not been received, the court must be contacted and a copy of the report obtained. The court report must be scanned and attached to IOMS, and the senior psychologist or equivalent be notified that the report has been received, unless it contains confidential intelligence which must immediately be forwarded to the intelligence officer.

Refer administrative form - IOMS Document Attachment Naming Conventions

11. Verification of sentence calculations

Each sentence calculation must be verified by a Supervisor within the Sentence Administration Unit. This includes each time a new calculation is created or an existing calculation is amended. The verification of a sentence calculation must be completed as soon as possible unless, when the sentence calculation is completed, immediate release is indicated. In this instance the General Manager of the Correctional facility and the Manager, Sentence Administration Unit are to be immediately notified.

The verification of a sentence calculation must ensure that:

1. a check of all sentence and remand documents either in electronic form within IOMS, or contained on the offender's physical file is to be completed to ensure that all data has been correctly entered and that all necessary flags have been activated;
2. the sentence calculation structure complies with the orders of the court and that only the applicable terms of imprisonment have been calculated;
3. all necessary sentence calculation variants have been correctly calculated;
4. the period of imprisonment, fulltime discharge date and custodial end date have been correctly calculated; and
5. fixed parole release/eligibility dates have been correctly recorded.

The Supervisor who verifies the sentence calculation is to certify that the sentence calculation has been completed correctly making a notation in the sentence calculation comments box.

Following certification that a sentence calculation is correct, the offender is to be advised and is to be given a copy of the sentence calculation report by a member of the correctional centre Sentence Management Team. The offender is to acknowledge the advice and that they received a copy of their sentence calculation, by signing a receipt which is to be retained on the offender's file. Where applicable, the offender should also be informed that the calculation will be again checked following receipt of the sentencing transcript.

An offender should, wherever possible, be retained at the centre completing the sentence calculation until it has been verified as correct, and a copy of the sentence calculation has been provided to the offender. If an offender must be transferred, the sending centre must ensure that the receiving centre is aware of all outstanding issues.

11.1 Sentence calculation checklist

The attached Sentence Calculation Checklist is to be used by custodial centres to support the individual sentence calculation process. This checklist ensures that all factors have been considered and checked when a calculation is being made.

The offender's physical file is not to be put away until the sentence calculation checklist has been attached, while ensuring compliance with principles of secure file management and Privacy Legislation. Where an outstanding issue in relation to an offender's sentence calculation may exist, e.g. awaiting response from court or prosecutor, the Supervisor Sentence Calculation or Supervisor Sentence Administration (dependant on regional area), may authorise for the file to be put away providing that he or she is satisfied that necessary actions to further pursue the matter have been taken.

Refer Administrative Form Sentence Calculation Checklist

Refer Information Privacy Act (2009)

11.2 Sentence calculation referral process

The Sentence Administration Unit is to maintain a sentence calculation referral process. This process is to enable the agency to refer the following types of matters for independent and/or legal advice:

1. complex sentence calculation issues that could not be satisfactorily resolved at centre/office level.
2. clarification of current and past legislation in relation to the application of orders of imprisonment.

The referral process should not to be used to circumvent the process of checking the sentence calculation at a centre level.

The Agency's memorandum format is to be used for all sentence calculation referrals. The referral must be emailed to the SentenceCalcuationReferral@dcs.qld.gov.au and must be signed by the Supervisor Sentence Calculation or Supervisor Sentence Administration (dependant on regional area) who will assess the referral and forward to the Manager of the Sentence Management Unit to advance the request for assistance with the issue.

Copies of the offender's sentence calculation report/s and all relevant orders of imprisonment, sentencing transcripts and other associated documents are to be attached to the memorandum.

12. Administration of sentence calculation

12.1 Complying with the orders of the court

In completing a sentence calculation, sentence management staff must comply with the court's orders regardless of whether they may appear contrary to law.

12.2 Requesting clarification of an order from the court

The process for completing sentence calculation while seeking clarification of the order and resolving matters with the court registry is provided in the Sentence Calculation and Administration Manual Part 1.13

12.3 Applications for re-opening of sentence

The process for re-opening a sentence is provided in the Sentence Calculation and Administration Manual Part 1.13

12.4 Bring-up systems

Correctional centres are to maintain the IOMS Events Manager to monitor an offender's:

1. appearance in court;
2. discharge and release dates;
3. parole suspension periods; and
4. anomaly management and follow-up in relation to court liaison and the sentence calculation referral process including submissions made in relation to section 11.3 above.

12.5 Ordinary or irrespective offenders

Where an offender is held in custody solely as a remand prisoner and is then transferred to a court to have all remand matters dealt with, the offender should be transferred to the court as an “ordinary” prisoner with the following qualification: “If granted immediate court ordered parole please contact the centre”. Unless advised to the contrary, the centre is not required to undertake any further follow-up action.

An offender is also to be regarded as an ordinary prisoner where s/he is currently serving a period of imprisonment and whose court ordered parole date has passed but the prisoner is held in custody for remand matters (refer CSA s. 199).

The above also applies where the offender's court ordered parole date falls on the court date for the remand matters.

An offender is to be transferred to court as an “irrespective prisoner” when:

1. the offender is being held in custody solely as a remand only prisoner and is being transferred to court only in relation to some of the remand matters; or
2. the offender is a sentenced remand prisoner and is transferred to court in relation to the remand matters prior to the expiration of the current orders of imprisonment or before the offender's fixed release date.

12.6 Receipt of court orders

Following the appearance of an “irrespective” prisoner in court the offender's placement centre is to ensure the timely receipt of any further orders issued as a consequence of that court appearance.

If the results have not been received, and there is less than 7 days remaining on the orders holding the prisoner in custody, the centre must complete the Urgent Court Result Required form. If no further orders are received the offender must be discharged on the expiration date of the current orders detaining the offender.

12.7 Out of hours sentence calculation advice

In those circumstances where a prisoner is returned from court late in the day and staff are unable to ascertain whether or not a prisoner should continue to be detained, urgent advice is to be sought from the Sentence Administration Unit. Advice can be sought from the Sentence Administration Unit, between Monday and Friday until 6pm.

After 6:00pm advice should be sought through the General Manager or Duty Manager who is responsible for seeking advice from the General Manager, Sentence Management and Administration Branch.

13. Presentence custody certificates

A presentence custody certificate must be prepared for all offenders appearing in court for sentencing in accordance with section 159A of the Penalties and Sentences Act 1992.

A presentence custody certificate must be created on the day that an offender is remanded in custody and amended as required. The certificate must be saved as an attachment on IOMS within the Sentence Administration Attachments section.

Refer administrative form - IOMS Document Attachment Naming Conventions

Several factors must be considered when preparing a presentence custody certificate. Refer Sentence Calculation and Administration Manual Part 1.5

14. Immediate release to court ordered parole

14.1 Offenders not in custody at time of sentencing

The following actions are to be taken after receipt of the court order if the offender is not in custody at the time of sentencing.

The probation and parole officer responsible for supervising the offender is to confirm that the offender had not been in custody at the time of sentencing and scan and attach a copy of all orders of imprisonment received from the court to the offender's IOMS file and notify the Probation and Parole SCAL email address;

1. create a draft court ordered parole order in IOMS - Warrants and Offences;
2. following confirmation from the Sentence Administration Unit that a sentence calculation has been completed or adjusted for a court ordered parolee, the court ordered parole order is activated;
3. activate the court ordered parole order and brief the offender accordingly;
4. file the orders of imprisonment as indicated in section 4.2 of this procedure;
5. ensure that any further orders of imprisonment subsequently received from the court are processed as above.