Kenneth Clarke is carrying out an overdue review of prison policy; for nearly two decades the agenda has been driven by a culture of longer and more severe sentences. In my time on the bench the prison population has pretty much doubled (it weren't me Guv, honest!)and the Justice Secretary is asking why.
It's a complex issue, and I certainly don't have all the answers. What I do have is a good understanding of many of the questions. Here's a selection:-
At Magistrates' level, it's actually pretty unusual to send anyone inside. I sit quite often, and I can't think offhand of more than a few immediate (i.e. not suspended) sentences that I have announced in the last six months.
Discount for a guilty plea, automatic release at halfway, and prison discretion to use tagging and other early releases means that JPs' real power, for a guilty plea, is to lock someone up for just over eight weeks. At that level the prison can only warehouse prisoners. There is barely time even to assess them, let alone carry out any rehabilitation work.
The vast majority of people who go inside from my court do so having been refused bail. Large numbers of those remanded in custody either do not receive a custodial sentence or are given a term that is less than they have already served. This is often the case with alleged domestic violence - but if we get one of those wrong we have a dead woman on our hands.
It is a truism that short sentences are ineffective at rehabilitation, and even the undoubted incapacitation effect is too short to be of much real use. The question that nobody has addressed is how non-custodial sentences such as unpaid work and community orders are to be enforced without the threat of prison as a last resort. Lads who just walk off their unpaid work, or cut off their tag, will be untouchable.
If JPs lose the power to imprison such people, as well as persistent disqualified drivers, very high-level repeat drink-drivers, shoplifters with 50 previous convictions and the like, the number of offences is likely to rocket. Drive disqual. and excess alcohol are summary-only offences with no power to send them to the Crown Court, so young Wayne can drive on his merry way, licence or no licence.
In the Crown Court the impact of IPP (indeterminate) sentences has been greatly to lengthen time served, as the prisoner is not released at the end of his term, but has to be assessed by the Parole authorities. In a Kafka-esque twist, many prisons cannot offer access to the courses and facilities that will allow them to show that they are no longer a danger, so the prisoner languishes in his cell, unable to help himself.
Sentencing for drug offences can be awesomely severe, more so in many cases than for physical violence. One of my old schoolmates received 20 years in 2002 for importing cocaine; I guess he will still be inside.
Then there is the question of community sentences. Probation has been under-resourced and buggered about for so long that many sentencers are sceptical about the way in which community sentences are enforced. If we order 'supervision' as part of the sentence, did we really have in mind a monthly phone call from a probation officer, after the initial period has elapsed?
I have no idea what the government will decide to do. The question may be linked to the excess capacity in many magistrates' courts and the overloaded lists of most Crown Courts. Increasing the lower courts' powers might help clear the logjam - after all a goodly proportion of cases sent upstairs by magistrates end up being sentenced within the lower court's powers. Whatever happens, it will certainly be linked to saving money, along with all of the other changes in the system.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
This Almost Beggars Belief
A Crown Prosecutor and barrister has admitted dropping cases for cash.
I am not one who is easily shocked, but this is something that I would have found incredible at first sight. This man has betrayed so much that our society values that I can only expect the judge to hand down the most severe sentence when the time comes.
I am not one who is easily shocked, but this is something that I would have found incredible at first sight. This man has betrayed so much that our society values that I can only expect the judge to hand down the most severe sentence when the time comes.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Lost Cause?
Along with many more distinguished commentators I have tried to pass on the fact that
NO COURT IN ENGLAND AND WALES USES A GAVEL! NONE! NEVER! NAPOO! NADA! JAMAIS!
NOT A FRIGGING ONE!
GET IT?
The Members' Section of the Magistrates' Association site illustrates a story about court closures with:
.
Bah!
NO COURT IN ENGLAND AND WALES USES A GAVEL! NONE! NEVER! NAPOO! NADA! JAMAIS!
NOT A FRIGGING ONE!
GET IT?
The Members' Section of the Magistrates' Association site illustrates a story about court closures with:
.Bah!
Saturday, June 26, 2010
The Devil Is In The Detail
The Retiring Room and the area round the coffee machine were abuzz yesterday with magistrates and clerks talking about the proposed court closures and Bench amalgamations. Most people accept that changes are inevitable and that only larger courts will be able to deal with the workload with the efficiency that we need to show.
Our courthouse will survive, and we will have no trouble absorbing, along with the the two surviving courts in the area, work displaced from the small courts that are marked for closure.
A lot of work has to be done to make amalgamated Benches function smoothly. Our proposed new Local Justice Area could be one of the good ones, as the three London Boroughs concerned have good transport links and similar demographics. Unfortunately, as is the case across the country, different courts follow very different organisational practices, This is the inevitable result of having a centuries-old system that was, until a dozen or so years ago, managed by a Courts' Committee of local magistrates.
The rotas will present the first problem. My court issues a rota three months at a time, after ascertaining JPs' availability. We are free to swap with a colleague of appropriate training and experience if something crops up. The court up the road has a rota for each day of the week, so if you are a Tuesday person you will never sit with a Friday colleague. I would hate that. Will the new Bench have one Bench Chairman or three? Or will there be one Chairman plus a Deputy for each courthouse? What about key committees such as the Bench Training and Development Committee? One or three?
As I say, there's a lot of work to do. But we have made it work for 649 years so far, so we can cope with this lot.
Our courthouse will survive, and we will have no trouble absorbing, along with the the two surviving courts in the area, work displaced from the small courts that are marked for closure.
A lot of work has to be done to make amalgamated Benches function smoothly. Our proposed new Local Justice Area could be one of the good ones, as the three London Boroughs concerned have good transport links and similar demographics. Unfortunately, as is the case across the country, different courts follow very different organisational practices, This is the inevitable result of having a centuries-old system that was, until a dozen or so years ago, managed by a Courts' Committee of local magistrates.
The rotas will present the first problem. My court issues a rota three months at a time, after ascertaining JPs' availability. We are free to swap with a colleague of appropriate training and experience if something crops up. The court up the road has a rota for each day of the week, so if you are a Tuesday person you will never sit with a Friday colleague. I would hate that. Will the new Bench have one Bench Chairman or three? Or will there be one Chairman plus a Deputy for each courthouse? What about key committees such as the Bench Training and Development Committee? One or three?
As I say, there's a lot of work to do. But we have made it work for 649 years so far, so we can cope with this lot.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Life Goes On
Despite the brouhaha over the proposed court closures, courts are still dealing with cases day by day. I had a call at half past nine yesterday morning to ask if I could go to court to replace a colleague who had a last-minute crisis. I didn't have anything special planned, so I hastily changed into a suit and drove to court.
I found myself with two experienced colleagues in a trial court. A briefing from the clerk revealed that the unrepresented defendant was planning to ask for an adjournment because despite three written requests he had not received copies of the CCTV evidence from the custody area of the police station. This was neither unusual nor surprising to hear, and since he had been refused legal aid we listened carefully to his arguments. The clerk told him what the Criminal Procedure Rules say about this kind of thing, and we ruled that the case should proceed. I can't say much more about it, but it was a typical example of a generally decent citizen, with a solid job, strong family ties and a sense of social responsibility who had come to grief over the use of a Class B substance.
He had put a lot of effort into his defence, but like most lay people faced with a court he relied on a number of frankly irrelevant details. I stopped him at one point and told him as clearly as I could that our findings would be based on the elements of the offence, and that, for example, what the custody sergeant said to the arresting officer when he was being booked in was not relevant to the case. We convicted him, and then it became clear why he was so anxious to avoid conviction. His well-paid job requires a security clearance, and his employer has a zero-tolerance policy towards anything involving drugs, so apart from the fine, his world has come crashing down about his ears.
We had a bit of time after that so we helped other courts, one case standing out because the low-level con artist we had to sentence had 157 previous convictions, many resulting in prison, four of then since last September. His solicitor did her best, asking for a fine and compensation, but we didn't even need to retire to decide to send him inside for 16 weeks. No reports were necessary; we had enough information and he instructed his brief not to ask for fresh ones.
I fully understand the moves to abolish short prison sentences - this bloke exemplifies how useless they are in preventing reoffending, but what else could we do with him? At least he won't con anyone for the next eight weeks.
I found myself with two experienced colleagues in a trial court. A briefing from the clerk revealed that the unrepresented defendant was planning to ask for an adjournment because despite three written requests he had not received copies of the CCTV evidence from the custody area of the police station. This was neither unusual nor surprising to hear, and since he had been refused legal aid we listened carefully to his arguments. The clerk told him what the Criminal Procedure Rules say about this kind of thing, and we ruled that the case should proceed. I can't say much more about it, but it was a typical example of a generally decent citizen, with a solid job, strong family ties and a sense of social responsibility who had come to grief over the use of a Class B substance.
He had put a lot of effort into his defence, but like most lay people faced with a court he relied on a number of frankly irrelevant details. I stopped him at one point and told him as clearly as I could that our findings would be based on the elements of the offence, and that, for example, what the custody sergeant said to the arresting officer when he was being booked in was not relevant to the case. We convicted him, and then it became clear why he was so anxious to avoid conviction. His well-paid job requires a security clearance, and his employer has a zero-tolerance policy towards anything involving drugs, so apart from the fine, his world has come crashing down about his ears.
We had a bit of time after that so we helped other courts, one case standing out because the low-level con artist we had to sentence had 157 previous convictions, many resulting in prison, four of then since last September. His solicitor did her best, asking for a fine and compensation, but we didn't even need to retire to decide to send him inside for 16 weeks. No reports were necessary; we had enough information and he instructed his brief not to ask for fresh ones.
I fully understand the moves to abolish short prison sentences - this bloke exemplifies how useless they are in preventing reoffending, but what else could we do with him? At least he won't con anyone for the next eight weeks.
Ingrates?
One of the courts down for closure is Salford. The Salford Bench has put a lot of commitment into the Community Justice initiative (about which I have severe reservations) over recent years, piloting the 'Community-Lite' ideas that were dreamed up when the glossy and well-funded North Liverpool 'Community Justice Centre' quickly showed that the full CJ agenda would be ruinously expensive if extended across the country. Salford did their best, but now closure awaits.
In the mercifully-fading years of New Labour's tinkering with the justice system many millions were thrown away on nonsense like the Respect Agenda, Night Courts, Community Justice (remember the wheeze to sit courts in the church hall?) Intermittent Custody, Custody Plus, and more. Let's hope the new people in charge are hard headed about sticking to proven core functions.
In the mercifully-fading years of New Labour's tinkering with the justice system many millions were thrown away on nonsense like the Respect Agenda, Night Courts, Community Justice (remember the wheeze to sit courts in the church hall?) Intermittent Custody, Custody Plus, and more. Let's hope the new people in charge are hard headed about sticking to proven core functions.
Just A Thought About The Closures
The proposed court closures that were announced yesterday are estimated to save £15.3 million a year. So if you multiply that by five, and add in the one-off saving of cancelling the (already overdue) maintenance backlog, that comes to about £98 million. The Budget proposes total savings of £83 billion in five years, so the closure programme will save about 0.12% of the total.
Every publicly funded programme will be defended by those involved in it, and I am as aware as anyone that the financial crisis must be tackled head on, but justice is of real importance to our society and to individuals - is it worth damaging the administration of justice to save 12 pence out of every £100 that has to be saved?
Every publicly funded programme will be defended by those involved in it, and I am as aware as anyone that the financial crisis must be tackled head on, but justice is of real importance to our society and to individuals - is it worth damaging the administration of justice to save 12 pence out of every £100 that has to be saved?
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Rumour Central
The indispensible CrimeLine says:-
Court Closures
CrimeLine understands that the Ministry of Justice will tomorrow announce 150 magistrates' court closures (approx 40% of the courts currently open).
Legal aid reform
CrimeLine understands that the Ministry of Justice will later today announce a consultation proposing major scope and legal aid eligibility changes, resulting in a cut to the criminal legal aid budget of almost 30%.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)