The Sentencing Guidelines

I read a couple of newspaper reports over the weekend bemoaning the low level of fines imposed on parents who fail to ensure their children attend school on a regular basis.
The reports cited recent cases where fines had amounted to less than 16p per day of missed school.

read here

I don't disagree that such fines are pitifully low, but they are not unique in that regard.

The level of fines for all offences are set by the Government's Sentencing Council whose 'Sentencing Guidelines' stipulate that fines are to be set as a proportion of income, and that such fines are automatically reduced by one third in the event of a guilty plea.

These 'guidelines' further stipulate that anyone on State Benefit has an income of £100 per week, no matter how much benefit they actually receive. So a fine set at Level A, ie 50% of income, comes out at £50, less one third off for a guilty plea which means just £33 to pay!

For the record, the Sentencing Council has 15 members - 7 judges, the Director of Public Prosecutions, one law professor, the CEO of Citizens Advice, the Deputy Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, a defence solicitor, a chief probation officer, a District Judge and, despite the Magistrates' Courts handling 92% of all criminal cases, just one Justice of the Peace!

And their much vaunted 'guidelines'?

Guidelines are, or should be, "for the guidance of wise men and the blind obedience of fools", a quotation attributed to Douglas Bader, but in the case of the Sentencing Council, their 'guidelines' must be followed. In this regard they are not guidelines at all, they are inflexible sentencing rules set by a goverment appointed body.

Their 'sentencing guidelines' are nothing more that sentencing by a complicated, abstract formula, denying to courts any real discretion or the application of local knowledge and common sense. It is a 'one size fits all' approach, and as such results in such travesties as the '16p a day' cases mentioned above.

It ill-becomes the Government’s Behaviour 'Tsar', Charlie Taylor, to criticise his employer's policy on sentencing, and those like Margaret Whellans, Strategic Director for Learning and Children at Gateshead Council, Nick Seaton of the Campaign for Real Education and miscellaneous newspaper reporters would be better advised to take their concerns to their MP for it is those who have shackled the courts to these ever-growing, constantly revised and universally disliked 'sentencing guidelines', rather than criticising magistrates whose discretion to sentence fairly and properly has been removed by this and past governments.