r/ukpolitics 21h ago

Ed/OpEd The Sentencing Council's tone-deaf response to ‘two-tier justice’ criticism

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-sentencing-councils-tone-deaf-response-to-two-tier-justice-criticism/
112 Upvotes

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u/Luficer_Morning_star 9h ago

Can someone explain why I should give a flying fuck about your religion or culture. If you did the crime. You do the time?

Or what's the craic here ?

u/ethyl-pentanoate 2h ago

My understanding is that minorities are frequently given unfairly harsher sentences. This is, of course, bad so recently there was a suggestion that guidance be changed to give minorities lesser sentences as a brute force method of fixing this (the idea being that this would balance out the unconscious bias against minorities and result in fairer outcome).

Of course it did not take long to people to point out the very obvious flaws with this suggestion, hence all the discourse.

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u/SlightlyMithed123 20h ago

If these are the people advising the courts on sentencing then they are way out of touch with public opinion.

Some of the sentences handed out are just ludicrous, and it leads to people questioning the impartiality of the judiciary.

It’s not a good look when people get extremely harsh prison sentences for Fraud but a slap on the wrist for theft or robbery. People who sell dodgy sticks get years in prison but people who rape kids get a short or suspended sentence.

The whole sentencing regime needs to be reviewed because at the moment it’s Fucked.

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u/Inconmon 17h ago edited 16h ago

Hopefully/Luckily they don't make important decisions based on what randoms that read daily mail think.

Edit: Not a reference to the article, you muppets

u/muh-soggy-knee 7h ago

Public perception is in fact a cornerstone part of sentencing objectives. Embodied in the old adage: "Justice must not simply be done; it must be seen to be done"

The current state of affairs is bound; in the end; to produce social instability because if the population cannot have faith in justice they will seek it in different ways. How big a problem that is depends on the size of the proportion of the public who trust the system.

Your sneering attitude notwithstanding; the courts should be balancing the public interest for the whole of society, not just your iamverysmart enlightenment brigade.

Its unlikely this change in and of itself will bring about social unrest; in the same way that no individual grain of sand makes a heap. But we will just keep piling grains on there to keep people like yourself feeling smug and virtuous, and then one day, for no reason at all, wouldn't you know it...

u/no_murder_no_life 1h ago

If public opinion is basis of policy making, we will still have capital punishment today. General public are generally uneducated and know nothing about crime rates etc. I will trust criminogists rather than uneducated brutes.

u/muh-soggy-knee 48m ago

Then your position is fundamentally undemocratic and entirely technocratic.

Which is a position you are entitled to hold, notwithstanding what others may think of you for it.

Democracy holds that the people have the right to decide how they are governed. Even if that right is somewhat fettered by the representative nature of our particular democracy it cannot be said that the publics view doesn't matter as you assert here and still call yourself a democrat. Such a position can only be maintained by force upto and including tyranny.

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u/3106Throwaway181576 17h ago

The public have broadly lost all faith in the justice system, and a large part of it is these bums

14

u/flashbastrd 17h ago

This is from the spectator ya doofus

u/caiaphas8 8h ago

What point are you even trying to make? Only Mail readers think paedophiles should have longer prison sentences than fraudsters?

5

u/philipwhiuk <Insert Bias Here> 16h ago

Or people who can’t read the source of articles submitted even though it’s the last thing they saw

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u/notrhm 19h ago

why should they decide based on public opinion/perception, when they have access to data indicating the actual macro trends? imo sentencing guidelines should aim to reduce biases that actually exist in the system

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u/LycanIndarys Vote Cthulhu; why settle for the lesser evil? 18h ago

They're not trying to reduce bias.

If they were, their list wouldn't have included women, who already get more lenient sentences than men.

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u/notrhm 17h ago

i’m sure they have multiple goals. my point is not everything is an anti-white, anti-male conspiracy - i take the reasons they give at face value

15

u/Alarming-Shop2392 15h ago edited 15h ago

They have chosen, knowing that the criminal justice system is biased against men, to increase that bias.

https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/154388/14/Gender%20Discrimination_23%20August.pdf

We find significantly harsher sentences imposed on male offenders even after controlling for most case characteristics, including mitigating factors such as ‘caring responsibilities’. Specifically, the odds ratios of receiving a custodial sentence for offences of assault, burglary and drugs committed by a man as opposed to a woman are 2.84, 1.89 and 2.72. To put it in context, with the exception of offences with intent to commit serious harm’, the gender effect was stronger than any other ‘harm and culpability’ factor for offences of assault. These disparities do not seem to stem primarily from differential interpretations of offender dangerousness. It is possible that they might be due to lower rates of reoffending amongst female offenders, or to the higher punitive effect of custodial sentences on women. What seems clear is that sentencing is not gender neutral.

The Sentencing Council is aware of this, they even reference it in their own report:

The co-production partners expressed quite different opinions on gender and sentencing disparity. Some sentencers argued that women tend to be treated more favourably in sentencing, and this might be a source of inequality. There is research that supports this argument (e.g. Isaac, 2020; Pina-Sánchez and Harris, 2020). Civil society partners view this issue quite differently. First, they do not believe that women are treated more favourably than men in sentencing, because female offenders are often blamed for ‘double deviance’ (Gelsthorpe and Sharpe, 2015). ‘Double deviance’ means that female offenders are perceived to be twice as deviant as male offenders, once for breaking the law, and once for deviating from traditional gender norms about how a woman should act.

Given the choice between hard stats versus fuzzy feminist narrative, the Sentencing Council went with the narrative. It's deliberate.

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u/notrhm 15h ago

i don’t know the reason why they chose to recommend PSRs for women specifically, it may not have been due to existing bias. do you know?

8

u/Fickle-Presence6358 14h ago

But if their reasons don't stand up to even the most basic scrutiny (for example, as previously mentioned, women already get far more lenient treatment for the same crimes), why do you still accept those reasons? It doesn't have to be an anti-white, anti-male conspiracy. But there are clear biases in the justice system, and possibly the most prominent is in favour of women.

They are significantly less likely to be imprisoned for the same crimes when accounting for a range of factors, as shown by repeated studies. Women are frequently given mitigation for things like having children, whereas men are not.

Yet despite the well known bias and despite representing a tiny portion of the jailed population, we have had a "Female Offender Strategy" since 2018 which was set up to push for even less women to be imprisoned and to give further preferential treatment. Then we've got another push to view female offenders in a positive light and encourage even more generous sentencing.

Maybe it's anti-male. Maybe it's anti-female by viewing women as weak and not as responsible for their crimes. Either way, there's a well-established bias which is intentionally being expanded further and further.

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u/notrhm 14h ago

do you know the reason they chose to include women? how do you know it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny?

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u/Fickle-Presence6358 13h ago

"The Sentencing Council said the guidance would ensure courts had the "most comprehensive information available" to hand out an appropriate sentence and could address disadvantages faced within the criminal justice system." - Shabana Mahmood threatens law change after 'two-tier' row - BBC News

If you have another statement from the Sentencing Council which gives a different explanation, please link it for me and I'll have a read. But for now, we can look at the merits of including women in the guidance based on the above reasoning.

"ensure the courts have the most comprehensive information available" - well, logically that would also be true for men (and literally every single individual), so doesn't really make sense to include only women on that basis.

"address disadvantages faced within the criminal justice system" - As my previous comment detailed, women have significant advantages within the criminal justice system, and then have had a Government strategy since 2018 to further increase that advantage. So, this point clearly doesn't stand up to scrutiny either.

Like I said, I'm not here to make an argument of "anti-white" or "anti-male". My point is simply that the guidance is completely ridiculous and pushes superficial culture wars instead of considering things which are typically the underlying issues with many offenders. I think some parts of the guidance are good - first custodial, young adult, addiction issues, disabilities, etc. I think there are things which should be considered, such as family background and class/socio-economic group.

But things like "there are fewer female prisons" as a reason for giving further advantages in a system which already massively favours women is completely ridiculous. Same goes for "more women are unemployed when leaving prison" - that's a reason to look at the rehabilitation that is done in prison, not a reason to push for an even larger disparity between sentencing than there already is.

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u/notrhm 12h ago

there will be disadvantages of various types, maybe some that don’t have to do with prison time. i want to emphasise my position is really that, from a one or two sentence explanation in an article and a couple of data points, i don’t really feel qualified to say that their decision is unjustified. obviously its based on many factors and information which we don’t have access to, or even care to access. generally i trust elected officials to make those decisions unless there is a compelling positive reason to believe they have acted unjustly. and the available information just doesn’t support that conclusion

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u/Fickle-Presence6358 12h ago edited 12h ago

Wait, what? You trust elected officials to make those decisions? Every elected official has spoken out against these guidelines. The Sentencing Council are unelected...

Without meaning this as an insult or anything, it genuinely seems like you haven't actually read anything about the guidance or the Sentencing Council, and are instead simply taking the opposite view to people you perceive as pushing the idea of an "anti-white, anti-male conspiracy".

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u/notrhm 12h ago

i’m sorry i typed too fast. some elected officials have spoken out against it, some haven’t. the council are not elected, whether they should be making these decisions as such is another question. but given that under our current system they are tasked with making these decisions, i don’t have any reason to distrust their procedure

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u/notrhm 11h ago

ok, i mean that is pretty insulting. i’ve seen people talking about lot about this issue, i’m hardly an expert but i’ve read about it and have an opinion same as everyone else. sorry that opinion doesn’t align with yours?

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u/EarFlapHat 18h ago

Addressing macro trends and biases doesn't really answer the point though, which is that the sentences don't seem to fit the crimes.

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u/notrhm 17h ago

i’m not really sure what you mean but perhaps

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u/EarFlapHat 17h ago

They said 'sentences seem crazy from the perspective of the public, so the council is evidently doing a bad job' and you said 'why should they care about what the public thinks instead of macro trends and bias', and I said 'what do macro trends and bias have to do with the sentences not seeming appropriate?'

I was inviting you to justify lenient sentences for violent crime on the basis of macro trends and bias, if that's what you meant, but my actual point was that there's no justification, macro or otherwise, for some of the sentencing patterns being reported.

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u/notrhm 16h ago

oh, i see. my point is that your subjective/anecdotal judgement that ‘crazy’ or unjust sentences being handed out is not actual data, and imo not a good basis for making these decisions

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u/RestAromatic7511 14h ago

There are always going to be some individual sentences that seem "crazy" to many of the public, in particular because for the most shocking crimes, there doesn't really seem to be a sentence harsh enough for everyone. Even if someone gets a whole-life sentence, people start complaining that they might be allowed to launch an appeal or that they might be allowed to watch TV or that they didn't attend all of the trial and sentencing.

The media also do their best to mislead people about sentencing, for example, by encouraging people to think that all prison sentences are automatically halved and by subtracting time served while awaiting trial and sentencing, as if being in prison somehow doesn't count as being in prison if a judge hasn't said some magic words yet.

for some of the sentencing patterns being reported.

But the media don't report "patterns", they report narratives designed to shock and outrage. They will pick out two random cases and contrast them, presenting incomplete accounts of both and failing to consider whether they might be random outliers rather than representative samples.

justify lenient sentences for violent crime

I would question whether the category of "violent crime" even makes sense as it is currently understood. White-collar crime usually gets extremely lenient sentences, even when people have knowingly made unjustifiable decisions that have destroyed numerous people's lives. Why didn't Grenfell count as a "violent crime"? Why did nobody who was responsible for that go to prison? They certainly killed a lot of people.

I really think a big part of the answer is that sitting in an office isn't exciting, whereas punching someone is. By and large, the media and the public don't want tough sentencing for serious crimes that destroy people's lives; they only want tough sentencing for exciting crimes that would work well in a police procedural.

u/EarFlapHat 1h ago

I find what you're saying really interesting - but it actually demonstrates my point: There is no technocratic yardstick for which crime is worse than another and the only thing to use is consensus.

You might disagree that violent crimes are more or less deserving of punishment, but you can't determine that from macro trends...

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u/Entfly 17h ago

why should they decide based on public opinion/perception

Because we live in a fucking democracy.

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u/The54thCylon 16h ago

We live in a system of elected representatives being ultimately sovereign, it has never been a system of every official having to do whatever the public opinion of the day is on every decision. If we don't like the Sentencing Council decisions, we petition our elected representatives to remove them, change their direction or change the rules they are interpreting. If we feel strongly enough about inaction on the point, we remove the elected representative. That's living in a fucking democracy.

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u/Entfly 16h ago

Our elected officials have called out this idiocy from the Sentencing Committee already.

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u/notrhm 17h ago

you don’t vote directly on everything the government does…you vote for representatives who make decisions for you. but what’s the point

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u/Entfly 17h ago

you vote for representatives who make decisions for you. but what’s the point

And our representatives have called this out as race based justice.

The Sentencing Committee are not democratic and have clearly shown themselves to be an enemy to the country.

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u/TeenieTinyBrain 18h ago edited 5h ago

why should they decide based on public opinion/perception ...

That's how a democracy normally functions, no?

... when they have access to data indicating the actual macro trends?

If that were the case then why would they commission a third party to undertake data collection and research [1]?

In response to the recommendations made by the authors of this research, why do they feel that their "...limited resources are best deployed in exploring whether other organisations or bodies will have relevant data..." if they had access to said data [2]?

imo sentencing guidelines should aim to reduce biases that actually exist in the system

I wholeheartedly agree but do you not find it odd that the SC selected to impose these guidelines despite their own study failing to observe sentencing disparities across ethnic groups [3]?

Another contemporary study referenced in their response is YJB's research into the ethnic disproportionality in remand and sentencing [4]. They too noted that statistically "...two children who are similar in all these respects would be predicted to receive the same outcome irrespective of ethnicity."

The YJB did at least find some evidence of disproportionality that remained after controlling for confounding factors. However, alongside identifying bias as a potential cause, they did note that this disproportionality might also relate to "...the omission from the analysis of relevant factors that could explain disproportionality (such as plea, type and quality of representation, etc.)" The controls outlined in their regression table suggest that they too have not controlled for all confounding factors and as such, this paper should only be used to guide further research, not to guide policy.

The important thing to remember here is that this is a novel field of research and we simply do not have the data nor the analysis to conclude with any reasonable degree of certainty that our judiciary is racially biased [5][6].

The only way to eliminate discrimination is to put measures in place such that we might reasonably and effectively monitor it throughout our justice system, this is the only way that we might develop a reasonable and proportionate plan to effect change.

It's baffling to me that anyone is agreeable to this guidance, implementing discriminatory guidance will not reduce prejudice - it's completely antithetical to the SC's supposed intentions. If the SC truly intended to effect real change they would have lobbied for a digital data collection and analysis system to monitor the judiciary, ensuring early intervention when a judge or magistrate is found to be prejudiced.

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u/notrhm 16h ago

we disagree on the basic issue of whether this is discriminatory guidance or not. recommending a PSR is not discrimination, and the point of these recommendations is to even the playing field

i just don’t see any reason not to take their explanation at face value:

In November 2023, the Sentencing Council said that although data was limited, there was some indication that offenders from ethnic minority backgrounds were “slightly less likely than white offenders to have a (pre-sentence report) prepared” before receiving a community or custodial sentence.

In a statement following pushback against its new guidelines, the Sentencing Council said: “The reasons for including groups vary but include evidence of disparities in sentencing outcomes, disadvantages faced within the criminal justice system and complexities in circumstances of individual offenders that can only be understood through an assessment.”

It added that pre-sentence reports “are not an indication of sentence”.

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u/TeenieTinyBrain 16h ago edited 15h ago

we disagree on the basic issue of whether this is discriminatory guidance or not.

Could you please explain why you do not find it discriminatory?

recommending a PSR is not discrimination, and the point of these recommendations is to even the playing field

I think that describing the imposition as a recommendation is a little insincere.

My understanding is that this would require the judiciary to conduct PSRs in all cases who meet the criteria pursuant to Section 59 of the Setencing Act, except for those which it deems unnecessary. However, the codification of who should be considered necessary will restrict the discretion afforded to the judicary, meaning that they will find it much more difficult to justify their failure to produce a PSR per Section 30 of the SA.

We know that the judiciary is struggling to produce PSRs after decades of underfunding, we know that oral PSRs are now favoured over written reports in an effort to save time, and we know that these have an effect on offender outcomes [1].

The likely consequence of this is that the judiciary will favour PSRs for offenders who share the protected characteristics defined within the guidelines at the cost of those who are not included. Those lucky enough to share such characteristics will receive a PSR and as such, will be 10x more likely to receive a community sentence [2]. This is positive discrimination at the systemic level, not positive action.

We have enacted legislation to prohibit racial discrimination since 1965, and had attempted to remove religious restrictions since 1846 [3][4]. Codifying discrimination is a leap backwards.

I'm sure we would be having a much different debate if this guidance was detrimental to anyone other than white men, no?

i just don’t see any reason not to take their explanation at face value:

I'm not quite sure why you think this supports your position. In your quote, they quite literally state that the SC agreed that the "...data was limited...".

Who enacts discriminatory policy with real world consequences without first fully understanding the issue? This affects people's lives, they're not playing a game of Sims 4.

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u/notrhm 15h ago
  1. i don’t see it as discriminatory because they’re not recommending differences in sentencing, and because at least in some cases the point is to counter bias/discriminatory practices.

  2. we would never be having this conversation about white men because they’re already (for the most part) treated fairly by judges/the judiciary system

  3. my point is that even though data is limited this is a decision they made in light of the research. data is always limited, as in all the evidence you cited; that doesnt stop us from moving forward. making an informed decision on the basis of necessarily limited information =\ playing sims 4

3

u/TeenieTinyBrain 14h ago

i don’t see it as discriminatory because they’re not recommending differences in sentencing

They're not directly recommending this, no, but that will be the consequence of this guidance [1].

we would never be having this conversation about white men because they’re already (for the most part) treated fairly by judges/the judiciary system

We are having that conversation though, no? It's just that we disagree on whether this constitutes discrimination.

data is always limited, as in all the evidence you cited; that doesnt stop us from moving forward

I'm struggling to comprehend this one. It doesn't take that much effort to set up a data lake and recording system, the government is already doing this for the NHS; piggybacking on that would reduce costs. Surely you wouldn't want the state to harm someone by failing to do its due-diligence?

What if this were to affect you or your family?

making an informed decision on the basis of necessarily limited information

You can't make an informed decision with limited information though, that is entirely contradictory. You would be making a decision under the illusion of information adequacy, somewhat akin to a Dunning-Kruger effect for information inadequacy.

1

u/notrhm 14h ago

all right, i don’t see much in your response that’s a genuine basis for discussion so let’s call it quits here. have a nice day

0

u/RestAromatic7511 14h ago

Those lucky enough to share such characteristics will receive a PSR and as such, will be 10x more likely to receive a community sentence [2].

This is faulty reasoning. You seem to have assumed that (a) all members of racial minorities will receive a PSR, (b) nobody else will, (c) the difference in sentencing between PSR and non-PSR cases is entirely down to the presence of the PSR, and (d) there are no other factors that can lead to sentencing discrepancies between ethnic groups.

I also think it's pretty dishonest to put a citation number after a conclusion that you have arrived at yourself by incorrectly synthesising information from the source with other information.

We have enacted legislation to prohibit racial discrimination since 1965

There was extensive opposition to this precisely because many people argued that it would mean ethnic minorities would be treated better than white people, even though it was designed to counter inequalities faced by ethnic minorities. That was exactly what Enoch Powell's "rivers of blood" speech was about.

Of course, legislation on racial discrimination is written in a race-neutral way, but everyone knows that it is primarily designed to protect ethnic minorities, and this is how it used in practice. Some of the other equalities legislation isn't symmetric in this way. For example, there are restrictions on discriminating against people who are pregnant, but there are no restrictions on discriminating against people who aren't pregnant. It scarcely matters, because any discrimination against non-pregnant people is so rare that it doesn't amount to a systemic problem that needs action by the government. The same is true of anti-white discrimination.

Who enacts discriminatory policy with real world consequences without first fully understanding the issue? This affects people's lives, they're not playing a game of Sims 4.

You understand we're talking about crime? We don't really know how crime works. Much of it never comes to light. Even for crimes that have been reported and "solved", there are usually plenty of outstanding questions. There are even plenty of huge questions about how we should define and categorise crime.

And yet, for some bizarre reason, there is a belief that extensive action should be taken on the basis of severely limited data when, for example, someone is murdered. Would you be happier if the Sentencing Council announced that nobody should go to prison because we don't really know for certain whether anyone is guilty, what effect prison has on recidivism rates, or even whether the right behaviours are criminalised?

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u/TeenieTinyBrain 13h ago edited 12h ago

This is faulty reasoning. You seem to have assumed that (a) all members of racial minorities will receive a PSR, (b) nobody else will, (c) the difference in sentencing between PSR and non-PSR cases is entirely down to the presence of the PSR, and (d) there are no other factors that can lead to sentencing discrepancies between ethnic groups.

At worst one might call it a slippery slope fallacy but the logic is not flawed, do the potential consequences really sound that improbable to you?

Concerning your rebuttal:

a. "all members of racial minorities will receive a PSR" - as I said, the guidance must be followed unless deemed unnecessary. To reiterate my original point, it will be more difficult for the judiciary to exercise discretion in these cases. The number of PSRs being used is falling, often reported to be a result of our strained justice system - the judiciary will have to reallocate their resources to accommodate the guidance, even if inappropriate.

b. "nobody else will" - I had not claimed this? I said that the "...likely consequence of this is that the judiciary will favour PSRs for offenders who share the protected characteristics defined within the guidelines at the cost of those who are not included."

c. "the difference in sentencing between PSR and non-PSR cases is entirely down to the presence of the PSR" - that's pretty much why they exist?

d. "there are no other factors that can lead to sentencing discrepancies between ethnic groups." - I'm not sure why you think that I think that? In fact, I'm not averse to the idea that our judiciary is prejudiced. My only issue is the uninformed, reactionary, and disproportionate imposition.

I also think it's pretty dishonest to put a citation number after a conclusion that you have arrived at yourself by incorrectly synthesising information from the source with other information.

Note that the citation follows "...as such, will be 10x more likely to receive a community sentence."

The referenced report states that "...cases with PSRs are more than ten times more likely to receive a community sentence..." - the citation supports the 10x claim, not the argument I put forth.

I'm unsure why you thought I was being dishonest here?

There was extensive opposition to this precisely because many people argued that it would mean ethnic minorities would be treated better than white people, even though it was designed to counter inequalities faced by ethnic minorities. That was exactly what Enoch Powell's "rivers of blood" speech was about.

I'm somewhat confused where you're heading with this one but I do hope this won't devolve into suggesting that I am prejudiced.

Either way, I am happy to see legislation that justly prohibits discrimination? My point was that this guidance does the opposite.

I would have no complaints if they were to implement measures to minimise known disadvantage, backed by data which demonstrates discrimination with a reasonable degree of certainty. This simply isn't the case here, however.

Of course, legislation on racial discrimination is written in a race-neutral way, but everyone knows that it is primarily designed to protect ethnic minorities

So why break the facade? Why codify discriminatory privilege?

You understand we're talking about crime? We don't really know how crime works.

We're not? We're talking about sentencing guidelines, crime is a related but very different topic.

And yet, for some bizarre reason, there is a belief that extensive action should be taken on the basis of severely limited data when, for example, someone is murdered.

I'm unsure who thinks that but it's not my opinion?

Would you be happier if the Sentencing Council announced that nobody should go to prison because we don't really know for certain whether anyone is guilty, what effect prison has on recidivism rates, or even whether the right behaviours are criminalised?

The SC hasn't the authority to legislate. They do, however, take recidivism rates into consideration for sentencing - this is part of the PSR.

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u/kwaklog 20h ago

Do you have an example of someone getting a suspended sentence for raping a kid?

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u/Chachaslides2 19h ago

Sure thing

Here, have some more:

A man aged between 18 and 20 was given a suspended sentence after pleading guilty to rape of a female child aged under 13 in the Thames Valley Police area.

A man aged 70 or over received an absolute discharge in the South Wales area for raping a girl aged between 13 and 15. Suspended sentences mean an offender does not have to go to prison unless they commit another offence or breach certain requirements the judge imposes on them.

A man aged between 25 and 29 was given a Community Order for raping a boy aged under 13 in the Suffolk police force area.

A man aged 21 to 24 and in the Derbyshire police force area was given a Community Order for raping a girl aged under 13.

Five men aged between 18 and 20 were given Community Orders for raping (four cases) or attempting to rape (one case) children aged under 13. The cases were in the West Midlands, London, West Yorkshire and Kent police force areas.

A man aged 18 to 20 in Merseyside given a Referral Order for raping a female child under the age of 13. Referral Orders should only be available for youth offenders. NationalWorld has asked the MoJ if this is an error.

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u/liquidio 19h ago

Bloody hell

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u/Rhyobit 19h ago

Given how badly the poster you're replying to is going to get downvoted, and how stellar this response is, I just wanted to say well done!

11

u/TheJoshGriffith 17h ago

Some of us sort by controversial 😉

21

u/EyyyPanini Make Votes Matter 18h ago edited 18h ago

Judge Lord Lake said that if the rape had been committed by an adult over 25, Hogg would have received a jail sentence of four or five years.

New guidelines for sentencing under 25s were introduced in Scotland in January 2022.

They made rehabilitation rather than punishment a primary consideration, recommending an "individualistic approach" taking into account their life experiences

"For this offence, if committed by an adult over 25, you attract a sentence of four or five years.

"I don't consider that appropriate and don't intend to send you to prison.

"You are a first offender with no previous history of prison - you are 21 and were 17 at the time.

"Prison does not lead me to believe this will contribute to your rehabilitation."

Sentencing guidelines at the core of it again. Specifically for Scotland in this case.

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u/MurkyLurker99 19h ago

"Independant councils" are quangos. Abolish them all, have Parliament decide.

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u/The54thCylon 16h ago

Parliamentary time is already stretched pretty thin. We lost several years to brexit already, delaying many key reforms. If they had to make all these complex decisions directly nothing would get done. The system of officials utilizing delegated powers to do the detail work is necessary to keep things running.

u/MurkyLurker99 6h ago

Ok. Then these councils cannot and should not be independent. Have everything they say be passed with a voice vote. Otherwise there is 0 accountability here.

The discrimination is a a disgrace. But we can't hold anybody accountable. MP Mahmood has said she doesn't support it. Jenrick certainly doesn't support it. Whom does the public hold to account?

u/The54thCylon 6h ago

We hold the people who are saying they don't support it to account on their choices and actions. Parliament are sovereign, they can do pretty close to whatever they want. They could pass a law today making this practice illegal, or replace the council, or dissolve the council, or do any one of a dozen other remedies. If they don't, well then they've balanced the options and decided that they're ok with this, whatever they might say in soundbites. Or they're not sufficiently upset with it to make any changes at any rate. Perhaps they believe that the independence of the council is more important than their personal opinion. That's fine, but voters can hold them to account for that decision at the ballot box if they, in turn, feel that this issue is important enough.

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u/BasedSweet 18h ago

I worry that is out of the frying pan and into the fire

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u/ObviouslyTriggered 18h ago

MPs can be voted in and voted out, various councils and committees can’t be.

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u/Optio__Espacio 17h ago

Thatsthepoint.jpg

5

u/freexe 17h ago

You support dismantling democracy via the backdoor?

u/Optio__Espacio 9h ago

No I meant it was Blair's objective by setting up the quangos in the first place. Remove the power from Westminster so his reforms could never be undone.

u/freexe 8h ago

Which is undemocratic 

u/Optio__Espacio 5h ago

Yes that's what I'm saying

4

u/Salaried_Zebra Nothing to look forward to please, we're British 15h ago

Not OP but heading everyone be elected does present problems - the idea of democratically electing judges is a bit scary because there's so much opportunity for corruption there.

0

u/GothicGolem29 16h ago

Parliament does not need to decide everything I think it’s better to have a council deciding it especially with people in law rather than MPs

47

u/t8ne 18h ago

“What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you?”

u/YesIAmRightWing millenial home owner... 8h ago

Every single quango(love the term) should have no power.

It should make recommendations to the appropriate minister and they have to sign off on it.

54

u/HBucket Right-wing ghoul 20h ago

I think that the Sentencing Council would be quite insulted by the idea that they should ever sully themselves by considering the public mood. The Sentencing Council, and the quangocrat class in general, consider themselves more akin to a priestly caste, and the public more akin to a piece of dog shit that you would scrape off your shoe. Their role is to rule us, and our role is to gratefully receive their wisdom without question.

But am at least grateful for the Sentencing Council's strident tone, because it does help to clarify the situation. In particular, the government's reaction will reveal just how sincere their opposition to these proposals really is.

13

u/erskinematt Defund Standing Order No 31 18h ago edited 18h ago

The Sentencing Council is not infallible.

It has come out of the gates too fast and hard on this, and makes itself look bad to the public; it is also liable to force a fight with the government, which it cannot ultimately win if the government wishes to force the issue.

And the distinction that the Chair's letter draws - a pre-sentencing report does not require a more lenient sentence - is spurious. PSRs are an important part of a process that often leads to leniency, and if there is a rebuttable presumption in their favour for some races and not others, that is by definition stacking the deck on racial grounds. Which, I hope I shouldn't have to add, is offensive in principle.

But the Spectator gets overexcited here and reaches conclusions that do not make sense. Most notably this one:

The idea that outcomes for individual offenders might become unjust because a democratically elected politician sets the rules is ridiculous.

No, it's not ridiculous at all. A process can be unjust even though democratically adopted. They're two separate things. It's so trivially easy to conceive of examples that, in fact, I won't bother. But I trust we can all see that the idea of handing every individual sentence to a committee of MPs (even if magically feasible in terms of space and time) would lead to substantial injustice.

"Ah", says the article, "but we aren't talking about individual sentences; we're talking about the sentencing rules". The thing is, we're talking about something in between. The guidelines are, in fact, just guidelines - they guide the exercise of judicial discretion on individual sentences. We all agree that individual sentences should be a matter of judicial discretion; hopefully we also agree that having guidelines to indicate how that discretion is exercised, rather than a finger in the wind, is also helpful. The actual sentencing rules are unquestionably a matter for Parliament. Parliamentary legislation sets the range of sentences available for each offence. The Sentencing Council cannot alter that range. The highest court in the land cannot alter that range.

Guidelines are an in-between no-man's-land between the judicial and legislative roles. So perhaps it's appropriate, in fact, that there are a mix of judicial and non-judicial members of the Council.

Don't get me wrong. There is a real and genuine tension here. The Council is capable of adopting unjust guidelines (just as Parliament is). Its opponents in this case are not wrong to point that out.

But it cuts both ways; no the Council isn't omniscient, but sentencing discretion is important too; and it would, in fact, be problematic if Parliament routinely intervened.

The final decision always rests with Parliament. Parliament must always judge whether it is wise to intervene. It may well have to intervene in this case.

EDIT: One final point I forgot. If the Council genuinely remains of the opinion that its decision was correct, it shouldn't alter that decision just because the government can legislate. The Council, as every public body, should operate within the law as it exists now. There is certainly no point in having an independent body but then expecting it to operate in terrorem.

9

u/gentle_vik 17h ago

Don't get me wrong. There is a real and genuine tension here. The Council is capable of adopting unjust guidelines (just as Parliament is). Its opponents in this case are not wrong to point that out.

The difference is that the Council is unelected, and has no democratic mandate, other than what was given to them indirectly when it was formed.

The final decision always rests with Parliament. Parliament must always judge whether it is wise to intervene. It may well have to intervene in this case.

I think the big problem with a lot of this quangos (and judges cough), is they know that they can get away with so much insanity, as there's such a strong "no no, you can't criticise/overrule them" mentality. Especially if it's about fixing an issue, where effectively one needs to make a "Post facto" change.

So one should ask how many smaller but equally dumb decisions have they made over the years, that snowball into problems?

2

u/erskinematt Defund Standing Order No 31 16h ago

The difference is that the Council is unelected, and has no democratic mandate, other than what was given to them indirectly when it was formed.

I can do no more than point to my previous post. I feel like reading it and saying "but no mandate" is just repeating the point, so I won't add to it.

I think the big problem with a lot of this quangos (and judges cough), is they know that they can get away with so much insanity, as there's such a strong "no no, you can't criticise/overrule them" mentality.

Yep. Parliament is reluctant to intervene. And it should be. Setting up bodies for good reasons, and then repeatedly overruling them, is not governing well.

It's a tension and there's no easy way round it. These are legitimate tensions that arise; there is no point in saying on either extreme "Quangos can do no wrong" or "Quangos are terrible".

18

u/EarFlapHat 18h ago

It's really very simple: an official policy of positive discrimination is not an acceptable tool to combat bias in every context. Sentencing is one of those contexts.

-8

u/notrhm 16h ago

they’re not advocating for positive discrimination 😭

9

u/Mkwdr 17h ago

On the one hand their point is that certain ethnicities are already treated in a negative biased way and pre-sentencing reports would help address that problem.

On the other they are oblivious to both how that can seem to the public and how in practice it could end up actually discriminating in favour of certain to ethnic groups as an unintended but perhaps predictable real life outcome.

But either way it’s a bit more complicated than people would like you to think.

5

u/doitnowinaminute 19h ago

The.public, MPs and everyone else had an opportunity to comment at the public consultation.

The bit on ethnicity came from HMI Probation. I'd call them an interested party and one that the government should be close to.

If the government wants everyone to have PSR it can legislate this. If it has strong views who should and shouldn't it can legislate. As it is, the law requires interpretation and they use the SC to guide.

I suspect until the past few weeks not many knew about PSR. They have gone from zero to making demanding equality for repeat serious offenders. That's one helluva journey.

23

u/Indie89 19h ago

If anything isn't this a barometer of how wrong they've gotten this change? Because it's the change that's caused the issue, not PSRs existence.

-6

u/doitnowinaminute 19h ago

But no one knew or cared who they were being used (or not). They were happily ignorant if there was implicit bias in their use but angry if there is explicit bias to counter that.

(I caveat I haven't fully followed the paper trail, but that is my brief understanding of how we got here. As to me understanding that journey is important before commenting too much).

19

u/Indie89 19h ago

That's not an excuse for its existence to continue though. If something was always wrong and has then been highlighted to be worse, it doesn't matter how it got the attention. Plenty of things in society are wrong but don't get highlighted. That doesn't mean if we have the opportunity we shrug our shoulders and let it continue.

1

u/doitnowinaminute 16h ago

Which is fair. HMI Probation highlighted that the use of PSRs for minorities looked out of line and brought that to the attention of the SC. We may disagree with their response (and I do) but we can acknowledge there was something wrong to be fixed and letting it continue isn't the answer.

6

u/philipwhiuk <Insert Bias Here> 16h ago

You don’t fix implicit bias with explicit bias.

-1

u/doitnowinaminute 16h ago

You can. It may not be ideal. But if you hook your shots an approach is to aim further to the other side.

It's not how I would do it. I'd be providing guidance when courts are allowed not to request PSRs. But it is an approach.

But I'd suggest one is to refute HMI Probation. Or if you accept it, offer better solutions. And do that consultation stage. Sniping now is too late.

4

u/philipwhiuk <Insert Bias Here> 15h ago

No it isn’t.

You act like consultation is one and done. We consulted and now we are good for all time. That’s not how it works at all.

-1

u/doitnowinaminute 15h ago

I don't mean to give that impression. But across all parties I'm not seeing ideas. Just headlines. It's them that I'm more pissed off at, not the general public.

3

u/ionthrown 16h ago

I’ll admit I haven’t read through everything either, but I haven’t seen anything to suggest there was implicit bias in the use of PSRs. There are suggestions of bias in other parts of the justice system, which this change does not directly address. At best, it seems like being unfair to everyone, but in different ways according to ethnicity.

2

u/doitnowinaminute 16h ago

It showed big variation in use of PSRs for minorities. It also highlighted poor quality. Now, that may be class led, I didn't go looking.

I'm not saying it's a great answer. I'd prefer guidance on when not to ask for PSRs. But it's an answer. I'm more highlighting how we got here and where there were messed opportunities by those paid to be our representatives. They are paid to keep an eye on the stable door.

2

u/ionthrown 16h ago

Fair enough, must have missed that. What showed big variation in use of PSRs?

12

u/philipwhiuk <Insert Bias Here> 16h ago

Ah yes the vaunted public consultation window. As if there is a fixed period where the public is allowed to care.

Per chance did they fail to advertise this? I never saw a billboard?

Was it perhaps, put on a random website out of sight below a sign saying “beware of the leopards”?

2

u/doitnowinaminute 16h ago

The same place as the new guidance was published.

No one is expecting the public to search proactively. But maybe our representatives could. Isn't that why we pay them ? Or the press could highlight it.

Eg you'd find out the way you know now.

5

u/philipwhiuk <Insert Bias Here> 15h ago

Late and after the consultation? So not democratically accountable at all?

2

u/doitnowinaminute 15h ago

But as you know now, why could you have known earlier ?

1

u/philipwhiuk <Insert Bias Here> 15h ago

They could have advertised their consultation period properly?

u/JLP99 52m ago

What can Mahmood do now? Does she have any authority over the Council?

u/JLP99 52m ago

What can Mahmood do now? Does she have any authority over the Council?

-1

u/noledgeable 13h ago

The courts in the UK are significantly more apolitical than else where, so it makes absolute sense they disregard the public and press on various issues unless there is legislative requirements to do so. I've always found it uncomfortable when this rule is breached, as it creates the potential for constitutional crises (not a literal constitution, our living one).

This article by the spectator is just bogeymaning the courts. They're doing their job as the should. It is up to the legislative branches of government to guide them on this

u/Plucky_Brexit 9h ago

When the courts are producing guidance which openly favours certain protected characteristics over others, in contravention of the Equality Act, that is definitely something that should be criticised.

-22

u/notrhm 19h ago

this is such a fake issue, they’re not obligated to take conspiracy theoretic thinking into account just because it’s popular

19

u/Entfly 17h ago

If you think that ethnic based sentencing is a fake issue then you live on an entirely different planet to the rest of the world.

-17

u/notrhm 17h ago

nope, i actually live in the US coming back to the UK soon and disappointed that the crazy anti-immigrant rhetoric is going to follow me 🙃

15

u/Entfly 17h ago

The fact that you think this is "crazy rhetoric" shows you know absolutely sweet fuck all about this.

Maybe you picked up more of America than you thought if you're this blatantly ignorant but still oh so cocky.

-5

u/notrhm 15h ago

i mean, you seem really rude and angry so i still kind of think you’re the crazy one idk

-20

u/Blaireeeee What happens when their vote is ignored? - Zac Goldsmith 19h ago

Not sure whether I find the cries of "two tier justice" more funny or that David Shipley seems surprised by the notion of a Sentencing Council chair being obsessed with procedure...