Pre-Trial Services: Someone Else’s Agenda?
| DOI | 10.1177/026455050204900104 |
| Author | Mike Octigan |
| Date | 01 March 2002 |
| Published date | 01 March 2002 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
19
Pre-Trial Services:
Someone Else’sAgenda?
Mike Octigan describes the recent history of pre-trial services
in the Probation Service and the wider Criminal Justice System.
He argues that despite a number of local initiatives, policy relating to
the remand population continues to be characterised by ambivalence
and incoherence.
During 2001, the remand
population increased by 11% from
10,700 to 11,920 (Gray and Rogers, 2001).
When a person is remanded in custody, they
can lose their accommodation, their job, be
locked away for over 23 hours each day,
and endure the pressures, hazards and
indignities of prison life. Remand prisoners
have inadequate access to legal
representation, their prison conditions
whilst on remand are poorer than their
sentenced counterparts and the suicide rate
amongst remandees is very high (Penal
A ffairs Consortium, 1995). Such
defendants suffer regular invasions of
privacy each time they are searched and
often fear danger from those incarcerated
with them.
Aremand in custody is therefore a
particularly draconian decision for a court
to make. Yet a large proportion of people
remanded in custody are ultimately not
proceeded against, are found not guilty or
receive a non-custodial sentence. Fifty three
per cent of male remand prisoners and, even
more disturbingly, 65% of female remand
prisoners were either acquitted (about a
fifth of the total) or given non-custodial
sentences during 1999 (Home Off i c e ,
2000). This situation has remained quite
static over the years (the overall figure for
1998 was 60%, Home Office, 1998). It is
likely that the situation impacts even more
significantly on people from minority
ethnic groups who constitute 22% of the
prison population (Gray and Rogers, 2001)
but only 7% of the general population.
These statistics include cases where: there
is a lack of evidence; prosecution is not in
the public interest; the original charge is
reduced, possibly during plea-bargaining;
witnesses fail to appear; and where the
courts decide that a community penalty is
the proportionate sentence for the offence
committed. The statistics, however, appear
even starker if one considers that amongst
those ultimately sentenced to custody are
the ones who receive a prison sentence
virtually commensurate with the time
already served on custodial remand. It
would appear reasonable therefore to make
the assertion that there are many people
who are remanded in custody unnecessarily,
or at least spend longer in prison than would
otherwise have been the case.
This article is about the recent history
of pre-trial services and the sense of
ambivalence that appears to permeate this
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