Magistrates request more creative options for sentencing

They also asked the government to recruit more probation officers, in their response last week to the government’s sentencing review, chaired by former Lord Chancellor David Gauke.

Mark Beattie, chair of the Magistrates’ Association (MA), said: ‘At the moment, within the existing sentencing framework, magistrates' options are limited to fines (which can be evaded) or custody when community options aren’t available or aren’t viable.

‘Magistrates should be able to apply other, practical alternatives to fines or custody, that would still be a deterrent to offenders while maintaining public confidence. For example, more use could be made of orders like driving disqualifications, travel restrictions, sexual harm prevention orders and football banning orders.

‘Reducing the current three-year minimum term for some of these orders could increase their applicability in these cases.’

Beattie warned the probation service is ‘under-staffed, resulting in significant delays to starting curfews, unpaid work orders and mental health treatment requirements (MHTR)’ while ‘weekend unpaid work placements—which are vital for those in full-time employment—are almost non-existent in many parts of the country’.

The MA response reports a case where an offender was given an MHTR as part of a suspended sentence but had to wait nearly six months for their first appointment, ‘was not able to access treatment in time and subsequently reoffended’. Other options ‘are so rigid that they are unworkable in the individual case’—for example, some programmes, such as ‘Building better relationships’, have waiting lists of more than 12 months.

More probation officers are therefore needed if more community sentencing is to be delivered.

The magistrates agreed short prison sentences are often counter-productive for many offenders and therefore should be treated as a last resort. However, they argued they are a useful deterrent for prolific shoplifters and offenders who refuse community options and should be retained.

Shabana Mahmood KC, the Lord Chancellor, was forced to release 1,100 prisoners early to ease overcrowding in October 2024, on the day she launched the Gauke review.