Part of Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 4:30 pm on 16 October 2007.
Christine Lawrie: I think our observation would be that the sort of people that these kinds of cautions are likely to be applied to are the sort of people that we deal with anyway, and by and large they tend to be unskilled and inexpert in dealing with those kinds of engagements. They are very used to dealing with the police, but they cannot make judgments about whether they are in a situation where perhaps they ought to be pleading not guilty and going to court. They may be putting themselves in a position where they allow themselves to be cautioned, when perhaps they should not.
Although as an association we do not have a particular line on this issue, and in some senses you could say that it takes work away from the probation service and eases the pressure on it, I do not think that we would take such an unprincipled view. We would want people to be almost forced to go through a proper process, so that they get a proper, just treatment. It is not that we want people to get off, but the system should not allow them to make the wrong choice at the wrong time.