General sentencing issues
| Date | 01 September 2007 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0264550507080376 |
| Author | Nigel Stone |
| Published date | 01 September 2007 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Nigel Stone, Senior Lecturer in the School of Social Work, University of East Anglia,
reviews recent appeal judgements and other judicial developments that inform
sentencing and early release.
General sentencing issues
Custodial sentences: Threshold and length
The Court of Appeal, fielding its strongest panel with the Lord Chief Justice presid-
ing, has taken the opportunity to give broad guidance on the approach to be
adopted by sentencers in applying the ‘non-dangerous’ provisions of the Criminal
Justice Act 2003 in respect of custodial sentencing.
Adopting the starting point that sentencers are confronted by full prisons, Lord
Phillips CJ observed that the regime that an imprisoned offender will experience
‘will be likely to be more punitive because of the consequence of overcrowding
and the opportunities for rehabilitative intervention in prison will be restricted’.
While some provisions of the Act make a significant contribution to a rising prison
population other provisions ‘should tend to reduce prison numbers’, starting with
the threshold test specified by s.152(2) (‘neither a fine alone nor a community
sentence can be justified for the offence’, viewed in terms of seriousness). He
reiterated that ‘the effect of a guilty plea or of personal mitigation may make it
appropriate for the sentencer to impose a non-custodial sentence’. Lord Phillips
then reminded courts of the provision of s.153 that a custodial sentence should
be for ‘the shortest term . . . commensurate with the seriousness of the offence’.
Moving on to the fivefold ‘purposes of sentencing’ set out in s.142, Lord Phillips
gave this interpretation:
Unless imprisonment is necessary for the protection of the public the court should
always give consideration to the question of whether the aims of rehabilitation and
thus the reduction of crime cannot better be achieved by a fine or community
sentence rather than by imprisonment and whether punishment cannot adequately
be achieved by such a sentence. We believe that there may have been a reluctance
to impose fines because fines were often not enforced. Enforcement of fines is now
rigorous and effective and, where the offender has the means, a heavy fine can
often be an adequate and appropriate punishment. If so, the 2003 Act requires a
fine to be imposed rather than a community sentence.
297
Probation Journal
The Journal of Community and Criminal Justice
Copyright © 2007 NAPO Vol 54(3): 297–304
DOI: 10.1177/0264550507080376
www.napo.org.uk
http://prb.sagepub.com
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