By UK Parliament, House of Commons, Justice Committee

This report examines public opinion and understanding of sentencing in England and Wales. We launched our inquiry to explore what the public know about sentencing, how information is accessed and how understanding of sentencing might be improved. As well as examining what the public know about the current approach to sentencing, we also wanted to consider public opinion on sentencing and the extent to which it should inform sentencing policy and practice. As part of this inquiry, we commissioned a public polling exercise. 2,057 adults in England and Wales were asked about their knowledge and views on sentencing. The Committee also worked with Involve, a leading public participation charity, to facilitate a deliberative engagement exercise. 25 adults from England and Wales met over three half-day sessions to discuss the aims of sentencing. The combination of these exercises has provided an invaluable insight into public opinion and understanding of sentencing. In terms of public understanding, both the polling and the public dialogue indicated that a significant portion of the public do not know which bodies are responsible for deciding sentencing policy. Only 22% of respondents to our poll identified that Parliament was responsible for setting the maximum sentence in law for a criminal offence. The participants in the public dialogue indicated that they were unsure which institutions had responsibility for deciding the framework that sentencers apply in individual cases. We are concerned that this can give rise to an accountability gap, whereby the public is unclear as to the Government’s responsibility in relation to sentencing. It is widely recognised that there has been a perceptible hardening of public opinion towards serious crime since the 1990s. Successive governments have increased the maximum sentences for a number of serious offences, often in response to public campaigns arising from individual cases. The polling we commissioned indicated that there is significant public support for increasing the custodial sentences for murder, rape and domestic burglary. For example, 18% of respondents said that the starting point for the most serious rape cases should be a whole life order (the current starting point is 15 years), and 33% said the starting point for the most serious cases of domestic burglary should be a 10-year custodial sentence (the current starting point is three years custody). One of the most striking findings from both the polling and the public dialogue was that one of the most important purposes of sentencing should be to provide justice for the victim. 56% of respondents to our poll ranked “ensuring the victim had secured justice” as one of their top three factors that should influence a sentence. In the public dialogue, there was a consensus that “providing justice for victims” should be a purpose of sentencing, and almost half placed it second in order of priority behind protecting the public. Accordingly, we recommend that the Government should review the statutory purposes of sentencing to consider whether greater emphasis should be placed on achieving justice for the victims of crime and their families. Our overall conclusion is that there is a need for national debate on sentencing. Our inquiry has highlighted that the public debate on sentencing is stuck in a dysfunctional and reactive cycle. There needs to be greater public knowledge and understanding of current sentencing practice, of evidence on the effectiveness of different sentencing options, and the resource implications of sentences in order to improve the quality of public discourse on sentencing. It is incumbent on all policymakers and opinion-shapers to play a role in shaping a more constructive debate and to seek greater consensus on the issues. This Government, and its successors, need to think carefully about how to engage with public opinion on sentencing. There are important choices to be made about how to ascertain public opinion and the extent to which policy should be responsive to public pressure. In our view, the Government should seek to actively engage the public on sentencing policy but should do so in a structured and methodologically rigorous fashion. It should ensure that both traditional polling and deliberative methods are used, and that such exercises occur at regular intervals. Finally, policy proposals on sentencing should be subject to independent evaluation, so that the resourcing implications are evaluated before they are enacted. We recommend that the Government establish an independent advisory panel on sentencing to consider proposed changes to sentencing policy and to provide advice to ministers.

Tenth Report of Session 2022–23 Report, together with formal minutes relating to the report . London: House of Commons, 2023. 71p.

By M. Camello, M., R. Shute, & J.D. Ropero-Miller

Individuals on community supervision are often required to abstain from alcohol and drug use and are typically subjected to substance use monitoring to verify sobriety, as a condition of their supervision. Providing reliable, timely, and cost- effective monitoring of alcohol and drug use for persons on community supervision as a condition of their release is a serious challenge given high-volume caseloads and concerns with public safety. This technology brief highlights technologies and solutions used to monitor alcohol and drug use for persons on community supervision. This is the third document in a four-part series on technologies to support the monitoring and supervision of individuals on pretrial release, probation, and parole (i.e., community supervision).

Research Triangle Park, NC: RTI International. 2023. 22p.

By Richard Walton

Prisons exist to keep the public safe by depriving the most serious offenders of their liberty, and to enable them to become law-abiding citizens. In recent years, those priorities increasingly have been neglected by the Ministry of Justice and Her Majesty’s Prisons and Probation Service. The collective rights of the vast majority of the public have been overlooked, without noticeable benefit to those who have been sentenced to prison. The case of Usman Khan, who launched an Islamist terror attack in central London in November, despite being released on supposedly strict licence conditions, illustrates the inherent risks of an approach that appears to set poorly researched offender rehabilitation programmes above the safety of ordinary citizens. This is especially true in the context of extremist offenders, who are ideologically motivated and more difficult, sometimes impossible, to rehabilitate. Khan, previously convicted for involvement in a plot to bomb the London Stock Exchange, hoodwinked his supervisors, who allowed him to travel to the heart of the capital, with fatal consequences for two young people and their families. This should not have happened: the process that led to it has to be re-examined. It is clear that a reordering of priorities for ministers, officials, police and probation officers is urgently required. The alleged terrorist attack at HMP Whitemoor, which is said to have featured replica suicide vests, is further evidence that the most dangerous offenders are not being monitored effectively and in the public interest – even within a Category A prison. This report sets out some of the organisational changes that would help to achieve the necessary change.The recommendation for the Home Office to reabsorb Her Majesty’s Prisons and Probation Service (HMPPS) is persuasive. The Ministry of Justice, formed in 2007, has proven to be institutionally flawed and a cultural timidity still persists among officials around the management of terrorist offenders. The 13-year experiment, which removed prisons from the purview of the Home Office, has failed and should be brought to a close. It would make far more sense – in operational and strategic terms – for the Home Secretary, who has ministerial responsibility for domestic security, policing and public safety, to be once again accountable for the management of all prisoners, with the assistance of an able and knowledgeable Prisons Minister. A Home Office structured along traditional lines would also be in a stronger position to direct information-sharing and more carefully assess the risks to public safety posed by prisoners – notably terrorist offenders – on their release. A revamped Home Office must review how prisoner behaviour is evaluated, as well as the schemes designed to deradicalise terrorist offenders and rehabilitate other dangerous offenders. As the report explains, there has been little empirical study into the effectiveness of schemes designed to challenge extremist world views. Specialist training is vital here, and the use of the best psychological and neurological techniques to assess risk and danger. This is not work for the generalist: as Usman Khan’s case shows, those who are ideologically motivated of Islamist extremism are capable of hiding their true intent for long periods in order to carry out devastating acts of violence. Finally, legislating to prevent seriously dangerous convicted terrorists and possibly some other dangerous offenders from being released early into the community on licence is an idea that deserves serious consideration (and properly informed debate in both Houses of Parliament). It is likely to gain public support but judges must be persuaded of its legal integrity too. As the Government explores these legislative changes and structural changes in the round, it must ensure that public safety is paramount.

London: PolIcy Exchange, 2020. 28p.

By Jacqueline Beard

Sentences of Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP sentences) were available for courts to impose from 2005 to 2012. They were designed to detain offenders who posed a significant risk of causing serious harm to the public through further serious offences in prison until they no longer posed such a risk. IPP sentences are indeterminate as opposed to fixed-term sentences. They have a minimum term that must be served in custody, sometimes called a ‘tariff’ that must be served before a prisoner can be considered for release by the Parole Board. The prisoner can then only be released once the Parole Board is satisfied the prisoner no longer needs to be confined for the safety of the public. Release is never automatic, and prisoners can be detained indefinitely if the Parole Board decides it is not safe to release them. When released, a person serving an IPP sentence will be on licence, subject to conditions. Breaching the conditions of the licence may result in the person being recalled to prison. If recalled, a person must remain in prison until the Parole Board is satisfied that custody is no longer necessary for public protection. The licence will be in force indefinitely until its termination. People serving an IPP sentence are eligible to have termination of their licence considered by the Parole Board ten years after their first release.

London: House of Commons Library, 2023. 22p.

By Anna Harvey, Orion Taylor and Andrea Wang

This report, updating the September 2020 Impact Report on COVID-19, Jails, and Public Safety, draws on a sample of approximately 19 million daily individual-level jail records collected by New York University's Public Safety Lab between Jan. 1, 2020 and Oct. 22, 2020. We explore how bookings, releases, and rebooking rates changed during the pandemic, relative to the pre-pandemic period. + Jail populations in the sample decreased by an average of 31% over the six weeks following the March 16 issuance of the White House "Coronavirus Guidelines for America," which expired on April 30. Jail populations then increased and have since recovered half of these decreases, despite explosive COVID-19 case growth in many of the counties in the sample. Counties with higher countywide COVID-19 case growth between March 1 and Oct. 22 have not seen larger reductions in jail populations. The decreases in jail populations after the issuance of the White House Guidelines on March 16, and the lack of responsiveness of jail populations to local COVID prevalence after those guidelines expired, suggest the importance of clear policy directives for reducing disease transmission risk within county jails. + Jail bookings dropped sharply in mid-March and remain on average 36% below pre-pandemic levels. As bookings declined, the characteristics of those booked into jails shifted. Those booked into jails between mid-March and late October were booked on more charges on average, were more likely to be booked on felony charges, and were less likely to be booked on lesser charges like…..

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  failure to appear, than those booked into jails prior to this period. + Although jail bookings dropped after mid-March, those booked into jails were detained for longer periods of time. Average detention duration increased sharply after mid-March, doubling from about 15 to 30 days, and remains nearly twice as high as the pre-pandemic average detention duration. This increase has offset reductions in admissions, and contributed to rebounding jail populations observed since mid-March. + Parallel to trends in daily bookings, daily releases dropped sharply in mid-March and remain approximately 40% below baseline levels. Those released from jails between mid-March and late October had been booked on more charges on average, were more likely to have been booked on felony charges, and were less likely to have been booked on lesser charges such as failure to appear, than those released from jails prior to mid-March.  The rate at which those released from detention are rebooked into jail following release is one possible measure of the public safety risk of jail releases. To date, 30-, 60-, 90-, and 180-day rebooking rates among those released during the pandemic have remained 13% - 33% below pre-pandemic rebooking rates. To the extent that rebooking rates measure the average public safety risk of releasing individuals from jail, this risk remains lower now than prior to the pandemic. + While the proportion of Black individuals among daily jail admissions did not change appreciably during the pandemic, the proportion of Black people among those released from jails during the pandemic decreased by approximately 5% relative to the pre-pandemic period. As a result, the proportion of jail populations composed of Black individuals rose during the pandemic.   

Washington, D.C.: Council on Criminal Justice, December 2020. 27p.