Sisyphus and the System: criminal justice reform in the Australian Capital Territory

Abstract

This paper acknowledges that the challenge to reform the criminal justice system's response to domestic violence is akin to the unremitting task of Sisyphus. Rather than accept that a successful reform effort is as absurd as rolling a boulder up a hill, the paper suggests that the generation of knowledge through research and evaluation serves to give a richer and more purposeful meaning to the tasks. Knowledge-generation is posed as a means to build the capacity of the criminal justice system to reform itself. Research, in this context, is a collaboration amongst justice administrators, domestic violence advocates and researchers to share and lighten the load of Sisyphus.