Governing Crime at a Distance: Spatiality, Law and Justice

Legal ideology depicts law as a spatially invariant practice. There is mounting evidence, however, of gross geographical disparities in the administration of justice in Australia. This article reviews this evidence as it relates to one body of law and practice in one Australian jurisdiction - namely, sentencing and punishment in New South Wales. It considers some of the possible implications of the failure to provide effective justice and governance infrastructures in some rural and remote areas. The purpose is not so much to indict the justice system for failing to live up to its promise of equal treatment, as to stress the need both to take spatiality seriously in relation to law, justice and governance and to consider the practical challenges it poses under present conditions in Australia.