Written evidence to be reported to the House

Part of Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 4:15 pm on 16 October 2007.

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Sally Dickinson: I think that we have to reiterate the fact that in order to impose a custodial sentence of whatever sort, be it suspended or immediate, magistrates must have concluded that the offence is so serious that it warrants a custodial sentence. A suspended sentence order is a custodial sentence—we cannot get away from that. We cannot make it a community sentence by virtue of the fact that the custodial sentence is not going to be served immediately. That is why the removal of suspended sentence orders for whatever types of offences will not affect at all the rate of use of custodial sentences.