The Sentencing Council, an independent body which publishes guidelines for the courts to ensure consistency, on Wednesday advised judges that they should consider a pre-sentence report for certain types of offenders.
This includes details about the circumstances of the crime and the offender. But the changes have received criticism from both Labour and the Tories.
Here, The i Paper takes a look at some of the claims about the new guidance and how they stack up.
“Under Two-Tier Keir, our justice system is set to have an anti-white and anti-Christian bias,” he said.
“Essentially Christian and straight white men, among other groups, will be treated differently to the rest of society.”
“There will never be a two-tier sentencing approach under my watch or under this Labour Government.”
“These guidelines do not represent my views or the views of this Government,” she added.
What has the Sentencing Council said?
The council said the pre-sentence report, drawn up when the defendant is from a background a judge or court may deem relevant, is “pivotal in helping the court decide whether to impose a custodial or community order”.
This includes factors about whether an offender is from an “ethnic minority, cultural minority and/or faith minority community”, and whether the defendant has disclosed they are transgender.
Sentences – for any defendant, no matter their background or ethnicity – are decided by an independent judiciary in a court of law, and not the Sentencing Council.
The changes by the council, they say, are all aimed at tackling inequality within the justice system as some groups are disproportionately more likely to receive custodial sentences than others.
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Lord Justice William Davis, chairman for the council, said a sentence properly tailored to individual circumstances of the offender had the “greatest likelihood” of being effective.
Will ethnic minorities or trans people be more likely to avoid prison?
The Sentencing Council only advises courts to “avoid” custodial sentencing for one demographic – pregnant women or mothers of new babies.
Reacting to the move, Janey Starling, co-director of feminist campaign group Level Up, said the changes are a “huge milestone” in the campaign to end imprisoning pregnant women and mothers.
Courts have not been told to avoid or be more lenient with sentencing for any ethnic or LGBTQ+ group.
What have legal experts said?
The Labour Baroness said: “The real issue is, the system at the moment, all the evidence shows that it’s disproportionately doing unfairness to certain sections of our society.
Kennedy said the guidance changes would produce “better outcomes in our courts”, and accused Jenrick ad Mahmood of “introducing Trumpism into our system”.
She added: “This is about wokeness. They want to say this is about being woke. It’s not. It’s about basing the system on real evidence of where there are failures, and knowing more helps to get better outcomes.”
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