All offences are prosecuted through the Tasmanian justice system, and sentences of imprisonment are administered by the Tasmania Prison Service.
[2] From the days of early British settlement in Tasmania (then Van Diemen's Land) (1803 onwards) until 1832, there was a period of violent conflict between the colonists and Aboriginal Australians, spiralling into an era which became known as the Black War in the 1820s, partly driven by increasing competition for kangaroo and other game.
[3][4] Explorer and naval officer John Oxley in 1810 noted the "many atrocious cruelties" inflicted on Aboriginals by convict bushrangers in the north, which in turn led to black attacks on solitary white hunters.
[5] There was a number of massacres of Aboriginal Australians during this time, notably the Cape Grim massacre of 1828, in which a group of Aboriginal Tasmanians gathering food at a beach in the north-west of Tasmania is said to have been ambushed and shot by four Van Diemen's Land Company (VDLC) workers.
In 1823 the Supreme Court of Van Diemen's Land was created under the New South Wales Act 1823 and began operating in 1824.
[8] After transportation to Van Diemen's Land ended in the 1850s, the colony was renamed Tasmania and its legal institutions moved away from the military model and began to develop characteristics of a civil justice system.
[10] Within the state, offences against the person increased by 6% to 4,574 in 2017-18, with this result above the previous three-year average and reflecting an upward trend since 2012-13.
Tasmania Police Assistant Commissioner Glenn Frame said that 12-year-olds were now committing crimes such as stealing cars, rather than 17- to 18-year-olds.
Police subsequently made juvenile one of their key priorities, which included involvement of other government agencies such as education, justice and children's services.
Former Chief Magistrate Michael Hill has advocated more therapeutic approaches to juvenile justice, agreeing that there was a need to get into the minds of at-risk children early, before they came before the courts.
The Magistrates Court sits in its Criminal and General Division from four courthouses located in Burnie, Devonport, Launceston and Hobart, and additionally conducts occasional sittings from Huonville south of Hobart, Scottsdale in the north east of Tasmania, and from Whitemark on Flinders Island in the Bass Strait.