This week Bishop Rachel has written to the The Rt Hon Shabana Mahmood MP, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice:
Dear Lord Chancellor,
I wanted to write to you and reflect upon the current debate about pre-sentence reports for particular groups of defendants. Of course, in a world of sufficient resources, there would be a comprehensive pre-sentence report for everyone and to which careful attention was paid in court, but if we have to prioritise, then it makes sense to prioritise those that we know are especially vulnerable or where there is evidence of disproportionate outcomes from the justice system.
The use of the Sentencing Council guidelines to apparently feed a culture war is distressing to see and the allegation of two-tier sentencing damaging to public understanding. Such allegations are made in bad faith; they willfully distort the intention of the guidelines. Seeking legislation to negate the guidelines may only serve to fix this distortion in the eyes of the public. There is much to gained if the government is willing to rise above the point scoring and to help the public understand the interplay of factors – and the underpinning consultation – that has led to the guidelines being introduced.
More political control over the Sentencing Council seems to be precisely what we need to avoid, as evidenced in my recent paper, A new approach to making sentencing policy which builds on the House of Commons Justice Select Committee’s 2023 recommendations, in proposing the establishment of an independent advisory body on sentencing but with an additional step to increase transparency in decision-making and link funding to policy changes.
I have great hope that the Independent Sentencing Review’s final report may help politicians of all stripes to see the opportunities (including potential financial savings) in resetting the relationship between politics and justice.
This comes with my heartfelt thanks for your work.
News Hub
