This article critically examines the New South Wales State Government's latest policy response to the problem of alcohol-related violence and anxiety about 'one punch' killings: the recently enacted Crimes and Other Legislation Amendment (Assault and Intoxication) Act 2014 (NSW). Based on an analysis of both the circumstances out of which it emerged, and the terms in which the new offences of assault causing death and assault causing death while intoxicated have been defined, I argue that the Act represents another example of criminal law 'reform' that is devoid of principle, produces a lack of coherence in the criminal law and, in its operation, is unlikely to deliver on the promise of effective crime prevention in relation to alcohol-fuelled violence.

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Although alcohol and drug use features prominently in many areas of criminal offending, there has been limited investigation of how the effects of alcohol and other drugs are treated by criminal laws and the criminal justice system. This article examines the framing of judicial inquiries about “intoxication” in criminal cases in Australia. It illustrates the diverse types of evidence that may (or may not) be available to judges and juries when faced with the task of determining whether a person was relevantly “intoxicated.” It shows that in the absence of legislative guidance on how the task should be approached, courts tend to assign only a relatively marginal role to medical and scientific expert evidence, and frame the question as one that can be answered by applying common knowledge about the effects of alcohol and other drugs. The article examines the adequacy of this approach, given the weak foundation for assuming that the relationship between intoxication and the complex cognitive processes on which tribunals of fact are often required to reach conclusions (such as intent formation) is within the lay knowledge held by jurors and judges.

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The fine is the most common penalty imposed by courts of summary jurisdiction in Australia, and fines imposed by way of penalty notice or infringement notice are a multiple of those imposed by the courts. The latter are being used for an increasing range of offences. This progressive ‘monetization of justice’ (O’Malley) and its effects have passed largely unnoticed. The enforcement of fines has, in most parts of Australia, been passed from the justice system to government revenue agencies with barely any public scrutiny or academic analysis. Sentencing councils, law reform commissions and audit and ombudsman offices have completed inquiries on fines, some of them wide-ranging and highly critical of existing arrangements. Yet, these inquiries arouse little public or media interest and, partly in consequence, there has been little political will to tackle fundamental problems as distinct from tinkering at the margins. After surveying the theoretical literature on the role of the fine, this paper considers the neglected question of fines enforcement. We present three case studies from different Australian jurisdictions to highlight issues associated with different models of enforcement. We show that fines enforcement produces very real, but often hidden, hardships for the most vulnerable. Despite its familiarity and apparent simplicity and transparency, the fine is a mode of punishment that hides complex penal and social realities and effects.