As a member of the "informed public", I note with interest that immediate custodial sentencing is down in Mags, but up at Crown. Well done the Judges. Prison works on this basic level. If you are in prison, you cannotcreate more innocent victims.
As for sentencing guidelines. Why? The law states what the sentence is for a crime and then that should be applied according to those hearing the case. Much like CPS charging standards, there are no reasons for this extra level of meddling, which only seems to be to the benefit of the criminal by lowering the charges faced and then lowering the level of punishment faced.
Sigh.
The law states the maximum sentence for a crime. Unless you think that the Brinks Mat robbers are equivalent to Bystander's £2 food thief, then you must appreciate that there is a considerable range of sentences which may be imposed. And if there is a considerable range, then sentencers need guidance in order to promote consistency. Ditto for charging standards.
Correction: obv robbery and theft are separate offences, so please substitute some suitably famous high value theft in breach of trust for Brinks Mat.
Fraudulently claiming £62000 in expenses for a London flat while having a mortgage of £26000? It may be fraud but it's also theft (all the elements are there).
I notice on the first page the report highlights that crime went down and convictions went up. So well done, Uniform, PcR, ConstableConfused and the other members of the police service who post here!
Somerset, further in the report states that suspended prison sentences in mags couirt have increased substantially. I suppose that won't satisfy you?
Somerset, you may find some cause for satisfaction in this document:
http://www.sentencing-
guidelines..._sentencing.pdf
Correct, suspended sentences dont count for me, I'm afraid. I do know how sentencing within the law works, thanks very much. I just do not agree with sentencing guidelines. If a thief in my area gets a harsher sentence than London, then thats just bad luck. Dont put yourself in a position where you end up in court. I have spoken with a few members of Mags Court in my area, who seem to believe that they can and do give harsher sentences for more minor offences than would be given in London. Maybe that explains the vastly higher crime rate in London. Just a theory.
@ Ed
Except, perhaps, for the appropriation, depending upon how the money was actually transferred:
http://snipurl.com/kz7fm [www_bailii_org]
SussexJP,Thanks for that. Does, in your opinion, Court sentencing reflect what these members of the public expect?
I noted this particular answer
"Public protection emerged as the sentencing purpose to which the highest proportion of people attached primacy".
Is this, in your experience, the primary factor when a Mags Court passes sentence?
I will ensure to print this off and take it into my Station. I am sure it will raise some interesting talking points!
I must be misunderstanding the statistics. Figure 1.1 shows that of 1381K tried at Magistrates' Courts, 1351K were convicted, equivalent to 98%.
I don't believe it. Am I just misinterpreting the numbers?
Somerset says that there is no need for sentencing guidelines.
Actually, we did manage well without them for many years. Up to the late 1970s the professional judiciary was relatively small in size. Since then it has increased many times. Also, in the late 1970s / early 1980s, some magistrates' courts started issuing their own individual sentencing guidelines which we used to buy!
I can well remember people not wishing to go before Magistrates' Court X because they knew they were much more likely to end up "inside."
With the advent of the Labour government in 1997 the need for at least unformity of approach to sentencing has been emphasized more and more. So far, the apogee of this development is the Criminal Justice Act 2003 which requires guidelines to be followed unless there are good reasons not to do so (and those have to be stated in open court).
So Somerset, there we are!! Parliament seems to disagree with you these days.
Personally, I find the statistical tables interesting but prefer not to comment on specifics. It is very difficult to do so in the absence of any attempt to analyse what is actually happening to influence the eventual data. Having said that, I am not particularly of the "lies, damned lies, and statistics" school. However, we do certainly have a government which loves this kind of data.
The SGC report should be read by all who have serious interest in sentencing. I think Somerset has such interest but, somehow, I wonder whether the SGC report will be on his reading list this weekend.
Is this the same report which SussexJP kindly linked me toward? If not, then you are entirely correct. I will not be reading it this weekend. I have to head back to the streets and ensure that the courts have sufficient business to keep them entertained. One statistical report a week, is enough for me thanks!
@alsojp:
Those numbers seem high to me as well. I can only imagine that it comes down to what is meant by people being 'tried' - which will be different from those who 'appeared before' the Magistrates.
So it will (probably) not include dropped charges, failure to present evidence, where the defendant elects for Crown Court and so on.
Don't know if that would make enough of a difference though - it still seems a high number.
@Jon
I am going for appropriation which includes asserting any property right on the property, including after taking initial possession. R v Gomez [1993] AC 442
A 98 per cent conviction rate seems incredible but probably true for magisrates courts.
Given the Herculean task of getting a file past CPS I think 98% should be about right.
Don't forget that Crown trials have to get past the CPS too. Yes, my research of CPS figures from previous years (as shown in other comments on this blog) shows a very high conviction rate at contested trial at Magistrate's, and a rather lower one at Crown.
Must remind myself of this stat every time I win a magisrate court case (rare but has been known to happen).
"I have to head back to the streets and ensure that the courts have sufficient business to keep them entertained." Thanks, Mate, sitting in court is a laugh a mimute. And the pay is great too.
98% conviction rate for trials? That's definitely not my experience Hm. Given that 90+% of defendants (I recall)actually plead guilty I am confused about the numbers. I know the reports say found guilty at trial but this doesn't sound right to me.
@PW:
I don't know if this helps, but I've tried correlating this with the criminal statistics at http://www.justice.gov.uk/
public...minalannual.htm
It looks as though the sentencing stats figures for those found guilty at trial are worked out as follows:
Take all those proceeded against at the mags court, then subtract those where proceedings are discharged, charges withdrawn and that are committed to Crown Court for trial. That gives those tried at mags court.
Of that 1,381,000, charges were dismissed for 30,000 - leaving 1,351,000 'found guilty'- which of course includes those pleading guilty in the first place.
It is one of those spreadsheets that is nightmarishly big, but I still wish included some more (like for example how many of those committed for trial were by request).
Thanks phi. I am confident that the vast majority of defendants plead guilty as opposed to being found guilty after trial.
No wonder some people think that you are much more likely to be convicted after trial at a Magistrates Court than at Crown with such a misleading slant!
In my own experience I would say the conviction rate appears to be more like 70/30 at trial. Of course it is meaningless unless one knows the 'actual' rate of guilty appearances at trial which would be impossible to obtain.
It disappoints me that we constantly see comments about the fairness of trial in Mags Courts when I see first hand how much effort goes into being fair.
If anything, I would say that trials in Mags Court are weighted in the defendants' favour given the burden of proof required and the fact that the Crown rarely seem to have done much preparation, often having seen the file moments before the trial, whilst the defence advocate has usually been involved since the beginning of prceedings.
With you all the way on that PW. I do get the impression that the mags come in for some pretty unfair drubbing by the legal profession about conviction rates, and stats like this certainly don't help.
It is an area where some proper research could make significant savings in the system, not just in money, but in time, pressure on defendants, public perception of the magistrates courts and so on.
Shouldn't be too hard to do it either: you'd need some better quantitative stuff on mags proceedings and some substantial qualitative work on elective crown court proceedings. Trouble is, without the research and the received wisdom being what it is the pressure on the defence is all slanted towards sending the case up.
Probably some vested interests getting in the way as well.
To go back to Somerset's point about the primacy of public protection in sentencing aims, officially I don't believe there is any order intended in the SGC's publications. I am sure most mags would agree that protecting the public is vital. However, we are required under the 2003 CJA to take account of whichever combination of the five aims of sentencing that appear appropriate to the case.
I rather suspect that what you are talking about is immediate protection which is not necessarily the same thing. Any programme to change the offender's behaviour will protect the public in the longer term.
@SussexJP
Any programme to change the offender's behaviour will protect the public in the longer term.
I submit there is a giant chasm between programmes that SEEK to affect the offender's behaviour, and programmes that ACTUALLY AFFECT the offender's behaviour.
Yes, I guess the word missing there is 'successful'! Probation would no doubt argue that the programmes they use have passed a threshold of success. Many may dispute the figures. The sentencing guidelines require courts to use them and I for one have a considerable degree of confidence in the work probation does in difficult circumstances.
Sussex Jp is right in saying that there is no set order for applying the aims of sentencing. Indeed, if there were, protection of the public would be 4th on the list and would come behind reform and rehabilitation !
All that is required is that the sentencing court has regard to the objectives.
[There are certain cases where the sentencing purposes in CJA 2003 s142 do not apply - e.g. under 18 at time of conviction].
Protection of the public, at least in my experience, is usually considered where an offence is particularly violent or the defendant has a record of violence, or when sexual offences are involved.
It is rare that the box for "Public Protection" is indicated in reports, cetainly in the Court I work at anyway. Most of the time sentencing is aimed at punishment and rehabilitation.
In fairness to the Probation Service (or whatever they are called this week) - and I am not a great fan, changing behaviour can be a very difficult task. I am not sure the PS would be able to achieve it at all unless the defendant really wanted to reform and often they don't. Having said that if the reconviction rate is about 60-70% they must be having some positive impact on some individuals.
When we consider that they are sometimes dealing with some of the nastier elements of society I do occasionally get the impression that we are throwing convicted wolves at a poorly protected flock of sheep (in the sense that most PS workers are pleasant well-intentioned people - the ones I see are anyway).
Am I the only one not surprised by the 98% conviction rate in the mags? I've understood that it's been in the mid to high 90% range for many years.
When I first began working full time as a criminal defence lawyer, I was told that the conviction rate was about 98% in the mags and 42% in the crown court.
As discussed previously in this comment, the CPS figures from 2007-8:
Rate of conviction after trial at mags: 89.64%.
Rate of conviction after trial at Crown: 54.40%.
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