Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill on 2014-06-12.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what proportion of women remanded in custody are subsequently convicted and receive an immediate custodial sentence in (1) each magistrates’ court, and (2) each Crown Court, in England and Wales.
Lord Faulks
The decision to sentence a person to a custodial sentence, or to remand a person into custody prior to trial or sentencing, is a matter for the independent judiciary and courts will take into account all the circumstances of the offence and the offender in determining this. The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 introduced a new “no real prospect” test which means that people should be released on bail if it is unlikely that they would receive a custodial sentence on conviction. Sentencing guidelines also make clear that if an offender is the sole or primary carer for dependent relatives then this should be considered a mitigating factor for avoiding a custodial sentence.
We are committed to making sure sentencers have robust community options at their disposal. Companies bidding for contracts under our Transforming Rehabilitation reforms will be expected to demonstrate in their bids an effective approach to the identification and recognition of women’s needs, as well as protected characteristics, to make sure that individual needs are properly addressed, and they will be held to account to deliver these services in their contracts. We have recently introduced Section 10 of the Offender Rehabilitation Act which requires contracts and service level agreements with all future providers for the supervision and rehabilitation of offenders to identify which services are designed to meet the particular needs of female offenders.
We are also working through the Female Offenders Advisory Board to improve options for Enhanced Community Provision and will be raising awareness of this to criminal justice system practitioners.
Table 1 shows the proportion of female defendants remanded in custody at magistrates’ courts and subsequently given immediate custody, broken down by local justice area in England and Wales in 2013.
Table 2 shows the proportion of female defendants remanded in custody at the Crown Court and subsequently given immediate custody, broken down by Crown Court centre in England and Wales in 2013.
