Police caution may make way for sanctions
POLICE cautions, which have been meted out by bobbies since the 19th century, are facing the axe in a major shake- up of sentencing for minor offences.
Robert Buckland, the Justice Secretary, is proposing the simple one-off police officer’s caution should make way for out- of- court sanctions that require offenders to undergo rehabilitation or compensate their victim.
His shake- up, which requires a change in the law, has been backed by police chiefs who want to move away from the “old framework of warnings and simple cautions” to a new system aimed at changing offenders’ behaviour by imposing conditions on it.
They believe the simple caution has little impact on most offenders’ behaviour. Instead, police would set enforceable conditions to be met within 16 weeks such as drug treatment, paying compensation or a curfew.
Failure to comply could result in prosecution for the original offence.
Receiving it would form part of a criminal record but, like a caution, it would be regarded as “spent” within three months and only declared on disclosure checks for certain more sensitive jobs.
“For offenders who have complex needs, conditional out-of-court disposals offer an opportunity to engage with appropriate restorative and rehabilitative programmes in the way that simple cautions do not,” said a spokesman for the National Police Chiefs’ Council.
However, critics fear it could bog police down in checking if offenders have behaved as required and fails to tackle the plunging charging rates where only 7 per cent of offences are now solved.
David Wilson, a former prison governor and professor of criminology, acknowledged cautions were only really effective with one-off offenders who needed a shock but said: “I would rather see their arrest statistics increase
rather than tinkering with the police caution.”
Sir Peter Fahy, former Greater Manchester chief constable, asked: “Who is going to monitor whether whatever action given is complied with? I can’t see officers have that flexibility. It does seem to be playing around the margins.”
It is believed cautions date back to the 1800s. Then in the 1920s, written warnings started being given for motoring offences but it was not until 1928 that the first statistics on cautions were published by the Home Office, and not until 1978 that the first circular tried to establish national consistency.
They are currently one of six common out-of-court disposals that police can use: simple and conditional cautions, penalty notices for disorder (PND), cannabis, or khat warnings, and community resolutions.
Now the Ministry of Justice is proposing as part of its White Paper shake-up of sentencing to rationalise and simplify the penalties into two “tiers” based on schemes piloted by three police forces and agreed by the NPCC. “The time is now right to move this ‘two-tier model’ to a legislative footing, ensuring that all forces are using a consistent framework,” said the MOJ.
The top tier will be modelled on the conditional caution, enabling police to set enforceable conditions.
The “lower tier” for the lowest level of offences would be modelled on the “informal” community resolution, where the offender issues an apology or offers compensation and does not get a criminal record.
It would mean police would use only two statutory forms of sanction, which would not include PNDS, simple cautions or khat warnings, said the MOJ. The legislation enacting the changes is expected to be published in the new year, before becoming law as early as next summer.
It is part of an overhaul of sentencing that prescribes longer prison terms for the most serious offenders, and tougher community sanctions so that more minor offenders can be dealt with and rehabilitated without being jailed.