MAGISTRATES RESPONSE TO COURT CLOSURES COULD BE BETTER

 

by TheJusticeofthePeace @ 20. Oct. 2010. – 13:05:22

So now we know*. George [Houdini] Osborne hopes he has made the cash disappear with our hardly being aware. Ex chancellor and current Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke was almost gleeful when he announced enthusiastically his own proposals in August. Kowtowing to straws in the wind the chairman of the Magistrates` Association in January seemed to be acquiescing in the possibility of courtrooms being held in shopping centres much to the amusement of columnists and the embarrassment of J.P.s. This folly was repeated more recently by the Deputy Chairman and has been discussed at length more than once on this site. 

The refusal of the Association to increase its annual members` fee of a miserable £33 to fund professional PR is lamentable. And that myopic position has been exposed this weekend once again. In response to questions on the Forum of the Magistrates` Association Patrick Cracroft-Brennan Executive Director & Association Secretary said with reference to the official response of the Magistrates` Association to court closures that the official document will give members a much more accurate and in-depth view of the MA's position than The Sunday Times! I would opine that it is not just members but journalists who require the information in that document. 

The problem as I see it is that there seems to be no emphasis on those areas of the Response which are of paramount significance. The most important trees in the forest are obscured by all the wood. It has been made too easy for major items to be ignored in favour of anything that suits the critics` agendas. The M.A. is forever responding and fails to be pro-active. If much of the Response is overlooked it has only itself to blame. 

ADDENDUM

The Treasury has published some detail on today`s announcement. The bullet points are copied below but still no mention of actual court closures.
2.68 The Ministry of Justice settlement includes:
•• delivering better value for money from the justice system, while punishing the
guilty and reducing reoffending;
•• plans to reform legal aid, targeting funding on those who need it most;
•• capital funding for maintaining the prisons estate, for essential new capacity and for key invest to save projects; and
•• overall resource savings of 23 per cent in real terms by 2014-15, through reforming sentencing to stem the unsustainable rise in the prison population, using innovative approaches to reduce reoffending and resolving more disputes out of court.

KNIVES, CRIME AND STATISTICS

 

by TheJusticeofthePeace @ 18. Oct. 2010. – 12:09:47

If we don`t know what`s happening it`s difficult to take measures against the event if the event is unpleasant. If the event is illness correct diagnosis is required to effect treatment and aid recovery. We hear almost daily of fatal results owing to mistakes in diagnosis. And so it is with crime. And so it is with crime statistics. Diagnosis and treatment in a statistical sense is essential to reduce the scourge of knife crime.

It is virtually a hopeless task to ascertain the extent to which knives [and bladed instruments] are carried, used and punished and form a comprehensive picture of this nationwide problem. It is as if the authorities tasked with the assembly and publication of this knowledge have obfuscation as a primary directive and dissemination as a secondary. As a not unnatural consequence many, most? people have little confidence in what they read and their opinions are moulded not by the facts but by their general political and social outlooks.

Within the last few days various reports have been published in the print media. Staffordshire Police are proud to publish their latest half year figures which show, they say, that crime has fallen. A local judge seems to echo this in one respect when he comments that deterrent sentences or to use his words ,”to send a message”, are keeping down knife crime in Stoke. I presume his honour is getting his information from a reliable source because his county police and the Home Office don`t tell us much about knife crime in Stoke, whether or not it is increasing or decreasing or whether deterrence plays any part in these unknown statistics. The closest approximation to recent information is available from the Ministry of Justice. It is not often a commercial organisation provides interesting information on a topic not directly related to its own interests but Insight Security has some thoughtful comment.

In December 2008 the then Labour Justice Minister inter alia that , ”All knife crime offenders given any amount of community payback as part of their sentence will now have to do at least eighteen hours of work a week and potentially be subject to a curfew that keeps them off the streets in the evening and a probation appointment during the week on top of these hours”. I am doubtful that that disposal is being observed. I am also doubtful that a Minister should be interfering such that he is appearing to micro manage sentencing. In any event there is no way to find out the true situation and that in itself is an indictment. 

The victims of knife crime are generally aged fifteen to twenty five. All those reading this and others who have a personal interest in the well being of themselves or relatives of this age group would be well advised to think twice when reading the latest boasts of Chief Constables that “the war on knife crime is being won”, or words to that oleaginous effect.

FINING FOR UNDER AGE SALES OF ALCOHOL

 

by TheJusticeofthePeace @ 16. Oct. 2010. – 14:32:47

A topic common to the many who comment on the state of disorder on our streets and elsewhere is the easy availability of alcohol to children. It has been blogged here as recently as July 14th. One would have thought that with a maximum fine of £5,000 for under age sales available under s146 Licensing Act 2003 offenders, particularly persistent offenders, would be deterred from the practice. One would have thought wrongly. 

In England and Wales in 2008 there was a total of 326 fines imposed. The Criminal Justice Areas with the highest and lowest numbers of fines imposed were, respectively, the Metropolitan Area 59 and Cambridge, Devon & Cornwall, Humberside and Warwickshire with zero. Indeed it is not since 2006 when a grand total of four was fined that a retailer in Devon & Cornwall has been fined for this offence. I had not been aware that Peterborough, Penzance, Hull or Dudley were towns where the under eighteens were on the wagon. To add insult to injury the maximum and minimum fines imposed in 2008 were Cheshire £1,050 [seven offenders in total for 2008] and £152 in Lancashire [twenty two fines imposed] . Only when retailers` pockets feel the loss of many thousands of pounds for this offence will the situation change. I believe Theresa May has hinted as much. 

These figures have been extrapolated from a parliamentary answer on June 17th by James Brokenshire (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Home Office; Old Bexley and Sidcup, Conservative). I rest my case.

A SAD TALE

 

by TheJusticeofthePeace @ 15. Oct. 2010. – 12:21:25

From my other life I would opine that most reasonably highly skilled and trained professionals whose work is with real live human beings as opposed to screens or bits of paper will find that what might be a life changing experience for those they serve is just another routine “day at the office”. Magistrates are no exception especially those whose time served is in double figures. An awkward incident recently reminded me of a somewhat sad predictable tale that occurred when I undertook an emergency extra sitting last month.

It was a breach court. Kieren was in the dock. He was just turned nineteen and had arrived from Ireland about ten years previously…….broken home……public order, class C cannabis and theft offences as a juvenile. He was before us on a warrant for ten times breaching his four month curfew [which had now expired] imposed for attempted theft from a vehicle times four. In essence walking home after leaving a night bus he had casually tried the door handles of four parked cars, been spotted and the rest is routine. The previous pre sentence report was from another county so we put back his case for a copy to be faxed. Watching all this from the public gallery was a female listening intently between conversations with her companion. They were told that if they wished to talk it should be done outside the courtroom. Another matter was called on. The chattering females had continued their exchanges and when one took a phone call they were told to leave the courtroom. This they did without protest.

And so Kieren`s pre sentence report came in. It indicated a supervision order with unpaid work as a recommended disposal with the usual pro forma comment that custody would offer no rehabilitation and if it were the preferred option the shortest period consistent with his culpability and the seriousness of the offence should be given. An alcohol treatment request had been returned as unsuitable. We retired. Our decision was not to sentence for the breach but to re-sentence on the original matter which we considered to be at the low end. A supervision order with medium level community requirement of unpaid work was our decision. He was brought back up, told the news and was visibly relieved. He was told in no uncertain terms that he had been close to being put in the van to be taken to the local prison, what probation would expect of him and that further breaches would probably conclude with her Majesty`s hospitality. He went downstairs to be released. An hour or so later Tracy was called. Nobody appeared. Our usher mentioned that she had been seen outside talking to Kieren. One minute later in walks the talkative female whose mobile phone had not been switched off.

Tracy, also nineteen, had offended three times in the past six months and was currently only nine hours from completing community payback for public order offences. She was before us having pleaded guilty to class A possession cocaine and assault by beating. Her PSR showed she had no appreciation of the harm and effects of her actions on other people and her eloquent utterances from the dock were similar although couched in a manner which belied her poor education and early history. We decided that a three month 7.00pm to 7.00am curfew on the assault would be as protective for her as it would be for the public with financial penalty for the possession and sentence was duly pronounced with clear instructions that the curfew began in a couple of hours even if the tag fitter was late in arriving. She burst into tears. Sobbing uncontrollably she was assisted out the courtroom by our usher. It was a long list and we did not rise until about 6.45pm. As we were about to leave our usher said that Tracey`s words to her as she left the court were to the effect that, “They can`t do that to me. I`m not bloody staying in every night for three weeks never mind three months…..”

Driving home about 6.55pm I saw Tracey beer glass in hand outside the pub nearest to the court. She never saw me but one pound to one penny says she`ll be seeing me or my colleagues again very soon.

SALAMI SLICING AND THE DAILY MAIL

 

by TheJusticeofthePeace @ 14. Oct. 2010. – 10:19:30

There`s a fashion for everything and not just how much of a woman`s legs should be visible when she`s wearing a skirt. There is fashion in thinking. What`s that phrase?...........think the unthinkable………it sums up nicely in tweet form going against that which is the accepted norm. And then there is the Daily Mail. Is there any other publication the name of which immediately conjures up so accurate an impression of what one is going to find inside? Perhaps Country Life or The Lady but they`re hardly in the same league and who gives a damn anyway.

Sentencing is as much about fashion as is dress design. Fashion could be said to follow public opinion as much as to be a leader of opinion. You pays your money and takes your choice. There are as many who want to be out of step with their contemporaries for some activities as there are conformists. Today`s Mail online carries the headline “Send fewer thugs to jail and save £20m a year, judges and JPs told”. This journalistic twaddle refers to the recent consultation on Assault published by the Sentencing Council. The document is 58 pages and although I have not read every word whether or not I agree with the proposals is currently neither here nor there. Nowhere did I have the impression from the document that justifies the Mail`s emotional headline. In fact that tenor of headline and its implications was robustly dealt with by Judge Darwell-Smith whom I quoted on October 11th as follows at the swearing in of new Justices of the Peace in Bristol

“You should no more pass a custodial sentence because the Daily Mail thinks you should, or a non-custodial sentence because the Ministry of Justice tells you the prisons are full.”

Indeed unpaid J.P.s who are not beholden to any government for their standard of living are in a unique position to voice their objections to any proposed changes. Perhaps that is why I have a distinct feeling that in the long term irrespective of party many in the seats of power would not be sorry if District Judges became the main arbiters of summary justice in this country. 

The manipulation of public opinion is as old as civilisation. There are countless valid reasons for avoiding sending offenders to prison and equally potent motives for incarcerating them. Unfortunately the current debate is being driven by the weight of government attempting to slice the justice system salami down to the rind and pretend it`s still enough to serve all at the table.