What on
earth is Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood
doing recommending that the Sentencing Council “reverse” its new guidance on the
imposition of community and custodial sentences?
She seems to
object to the idea that a court should normally ask for a pre-sentence report in
the case of an offender belonging to a cohort at risk of unfair outcomes.
We know that
for certain crimes at least, ethnic minority defendants are treated more
harshly in the courts than white; and that the pains of imprisonment are particularly
severe for women, for young people and for other groups.
I’d have
expected a Labour Justice Secretary to welcome guidance which seeks to address these
disparities in a constructive manner. But instead it has caused her “displeasure”
because she does “not stand for any differential treatment before the law, for
anyone of any kind”. The Prime Minister
appears to have backed her in a Delphic tweet saying “the British people
rightly demand the security of safe streets and justice done. We’ll sort out
any system not working in their interests”.
I don’t imagine
Mahmood consulted her cabinet colleague David Lammy whose 2017 review found pre-sentence
reports “may
be particularly important for shedding light on individuals from backgrounds
unfamiliar to the judge.” Instead
she accepted the absurd claim from her Conservative shadow that this was
irrefutable evidence of two tier justice. If anything it shows the opposite.
I’ve not
always been the
greatest fan of the Sentencing Council, but this guideline is the best work
they’ve done. It strongly encourages courts to use prison as a last resort and
should help to replace useless short jail terms with more constructive sanctions
outside.
If the government
cannot hold the line against an opposition assault about pre -sentence reports,
I don’t hold out much hope for the Gauke review.
