ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses that the provisions have been interpreted and applied by the courts of Victoria. It discusses whether the system of judicial decision-making about detainees' liberty is pro-therapeutic in its form and in its implementation and thereby worthy of emulation. The status of detention "at the Governor's pleasure" is formally abolished by the legislation and the notion of "insanity" is replaced by that of "mental impairment". The least restrictive alternative principle appears often to have yielded to the imperative to ensure that avoidable risk to the community is avoided. The potency of the opprobrious descriptor "killer" might be regarded as to some degree attenuated when the crime is that of a woman bringing about the death of her own child. Substance dependence is a factor that has the potential to impair compliance with treatment, to lower insight and to disinhibit, raising the potential for latent psychotic symptoms to become active or for low-level symptoms to become more significant.
