Questions of Sentencing

An appearance this week in Parliament for the Chair of the Sentencing Council, who’s up before the Justice Committee as part of its inquiry into the prison population.  The Committee is always consulted about draft sentencing guidelines and has often been concerned about their potential to inflate the length of prison sentences. The Committee is right to be vigilant as a recent independent review of the Council’s work by Sir Anthony Bottoms found two of its major guidelines – on assaults and burglary - have led to unexpected increases in the severity of sentencing.  So what should MP’s ask Lord Justice Treacy on Wednesday? Here are four suggestions.
 

First, the Committee should ask why the Council rejected two of its proposals about the new breach guideline. The law requires courts to activate a suspended prison sentence in the event of a further conviction or failure to comply with a supervision requirement “unless it would be unjust in all the circumstances.” MP’s wanted courts, when forming a view on whether to activate, to be able to look afresh at whether the original offence had reached the custody threshold; and whether any shortfall in the quality of supervision by probation services may have contributed to the non-compliance or further offending.  The Council disagreed on both counts. Treacy should be asked to explain why “all the circumstances” excludes these two.

Second, as I did in my 2016 Transform Justice report , Tony Bottoms’ review criticised the Council for giving little emphasis to its duty, when drafting guidelines, to consider the cost and effectiveness of sentences. MP’s will want to know what steps the Council is taking to remedy this. Do they see any merit for example in explicitly permitting, or even encouraging courts to sentence below the usual range if it is in the interests of problem solving or rehabilitation in a case?  And how does the Council plan to reflect recent evidence that community-based supervision is more effective than a short spell in jail.

Third, MP’s might wonder what if any role the Council has to play in the implementation of the Female Offender Strategy published last month.  The strategy aims to “support a greater proportion of women to serve their sentence in the community successfully and reduce the numbers serving short custodial sentences”. But there is no mention of any new guideline or change in the law to make that happen. There is a case for guidelines on a distinctive approach to a variety of people with special needs.  But for women, it is surely long overdue.

Finally, the Committee should want to know if the Council has the resources to do its job properly. Treacy told the Committee in May that it couldn’t afford to research whether and how courts take the maturity of offenders in to account when sentencing- a topic of concern to the Justice Committee given their recent  inquiries into young adult offenders. Treacy's letter to them talked of an additional cut of 6% on top of 5% “which If implemented … would cut our available resources (after fixed costs and prior commitments) by 56 per cent”. Although the timescale’s not clear, it must be a false economy for the MoJ to grab a few thousand savings on research and analysis from a body whose decisions determine the spending of so many millions in prison costs.