The Magistrates’ Association, the membership body for magistrates in England and Wales, has cautiously welcomed the Sentencing Bill – presented to Parliament on Tuesday 2 September – warning that magistrates will still need the discretion to impose short custodial sentences as a last resort, if the offence and the offender’s behaviour mean that there are no viable alternatives.
The Association also said that the success of the reforms will depend on the Probation Service being able to ‘keep its eye on the ball’ on community sentencing, as its input is critical to improving the credibility of community sentences as both rehabilitation and punishment.
Mark Beattie JP, national chair of the Magistrates’ Association, said:
“The Sentencing Bill is long and complex and makes many changes to the Sentencing Code. It will have a big impact – both on custodial sentencing and the use of community orders – and over the coming weeks we will be looking at it in detail as it moves through Parliament.
“If the Bill is passed into law in its current form, there will be a broad presumption against anyone being sentenced to prison for less than 12 months, except in exceptional circumstances. As we explained in our evidence to the Independent Review of Sentencing, we support this move, as short sentences are rarely effective in changing the behaviour of offenders, and sometimes make things worse.
“However, there needs to be close scrutiny of what these ‘exceptional circumstances’ will cover. We feel that short custodial sentences need to still be available to magistrates when all other suitable options have run out – for example, for especially prolific offenders who persistently refuse to comply with community options like unpaid work orders. Prolific offenders are often responsible for a huge amount of crime in a local area and sometimes prison is the only viable option when all other options have been exhausted.
“We are also concerned that, as the Probation Service becomes increasingly focused towards more serious offenders and the highest risk cases, it must not neglect the effective management of community sentencing. Probation’s work to support community sentencing is vital – monitoring offenders’ compliance, supporting rehabilitative activities, and referring offenders who don’t comply with their community order back to the court – and if they don’t also have the resources for this work, the usefulness and credibility of community sentencing will suffer.”