Coroners and Justice Bill
12:00 pm
Paul Cavadino: In my view, it would obviously be sensible to have a greater correspondence between the level of sentencing and the resources available, including the number of prison places. Prison overcrowding reduces the effectiveness of sentences by making it harder to rehabilitate offenders and reduce reoffending. The Bill does not require rationing of penal resources; it requires the publication of an assessment of the resources that would be required in order for any particular set of guidelines to be implemented.
That means that policy makers, seeing that assessment, have a decision. They can decide either to plan to provide additional resources, if additional resources are required, or they can decide to legislate to change the parameters within which sentencers operate in order to ensure that there is a different level of sentencing for some or all offences that corresponds with the reasonably foreseeable resources. The approach of requiring an individual sentencer to decide what he or she does because of resources is one that would not be consistent with the interests of justice, but we need to find a better way to bring sentencing levels in line with the resources available. Publishing an impact assessment means that policy makers would be able to see what the real impact of the guidelines would be and make policy choices accordingly.