Post-sentence continued detention of high-risk terrorist offenders in Australia

In December 2015, the Council of Australian Governments agreed to implement a nationally-consistent post-sentence preventative detention regime forconvicted terrorists. This scheme will allow for the continued imprisonment ofhigh-risk terrorist offenders in a similar way as the existing sex offender andviolent offender continuing detention order regimes. This article will assesswhether the introduction of a continuing detention order regime for terrorism ispossible and defensible, based on the requirements and justifications providedfor the sex offender and violent offender regimes. Specifically, it will beconsidered whether psychometric risk assessment for terrorist offenders canvalidly estimate which offenders are at a high-risk of reoffending and pose athreat to the community and whether the introduction of an effective rehabilitation program for terrorism is possible