Adam Vaughan Stewart, 37, was sentenced to a total of 20 months in jail this week on after he pleaded guilty to 10 charges, which included two failures to adhere to his obligations as a registered child sex offender.

However, after serving just four months in prison, magistrate Louise Taylor imposed an intensive correction order for the rest of his term.

The president of the police association, Alex Caruana, said he was worried that a magistrate would "completely ignore the system put in place to determine if someone is unsuitable for an intensive corrections order".

"If the offender breaches this latest order, who will be held responsible? What happens if the convicted child sex offender commits further breaches against the sex offender registry reporting requirements? Registered child sex offenders have stringent reporting requirements for a reason," he said.

The latest outcry comes as police-generated data has revealed over 940 breaches of bail by offenders in the ACT for the first half of the year, placing the territory on target to record the highest number of breaches ever.

However, last year the Justice and Community Services directorate told an ACT Assembly standing committee that it was unable to generate any comparative systemic data, presenting the argument that it could not do so because the system it used was "very data-rich".

According to police data extracted from its secure PROMIS system, the highest 12-month tally of bail breaches was 1379, recorded back in 2019-20.

At the current rate of bail breach arrests and charges by police - running at an average of more than two a day - that previous high mark will be exceeded by almost 30 per cent by the end of the year.

At a recent ACT Estimates hearing, ACT Chief Police officer Neil Gaughan cautiously told the committee that "certain aspects of the Bail Act need to be looked at".

Meanwhile, frontline police officers are telling their union representatives that they are completely "fed up" with the leniency of the ACT courts in granting bail to repeat offenders.

One part of the existing Bail Act legislation which police are seeking to amend is Section 44, in which the "[bail] application may only be made if the director of public prosecutions gives the court that made the decision oral notice of the proposed application immediately after the [bail] decision is made".

He indicated to the Assembly committee that it was difficult for junior prosecutors in court to "stand up to a magistrate and say, 'I am going to appeal that decision [to grant bail]'."

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Deputy Commissioner Gaughan said it was his understanding that only two oral appeal applications had been made to ACT magistrates in two years.

The public debate over ACT court leniency both in granting bail to recidivist offenders and in "soft" sentencing compared with other states and territories is certain to remain a community touchpoint after three public e-petitions calling for legislative review and judicial oversight have far surpassed their targets of 500 signatures, which will elevate them for consideration.

The three petitions, sponsored by the Liberals' Jeremy Hanson, were launched last month by Tom McLuckie, whose online campaign "ACTnowforsafer roads" now has garnered more than 7200 followers.

Mr McLuckie's son Matthew was the blameless victim killed in May during a head-on collision with a stolen car driven on the wrong side of Hindmarsh Drive. The driver of the stolen car was badly injured and is yet to face court, and a second driver involved is yet to be arrested.

Mr McLuckie's petition for tougher sentencing of repeated, serious motor vehicle offenders has topped 1200 signatures, a second seeking an independent review of sentencing decisions has reached 940 signatures, and a third seeking an independent review of judicial appointments has reached 782.

Mr McLuckie's campaign has the full support of the Australian Federal Police Association which has described the territory's sentencing and bail processes as "fundamentally flawed and dangerously inadequate".

Petitions containing at least 500 signatures are automatically referred to the relevant Minister, and to the Assembly committee for consideration.

ACT Attorney-General Shane Rattenbury has stated unequivocally that he would not support a full judicial review but has commissioned a study by the Justice and Community Safety directorate around "how bail is constructed in legislation and whether any recent cases in court have thrown up question marks".

A new Assembly inquiry into dangerous driving will be held later this year with wide-ranging terms of reference to consider the criminal justice and police responses to dangerous driver offending,

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