Sentencing guidelines make a joke of equality before the law

I WAS brought up to believe in maxims such as “If you commit a crime, you do the time” and “Everyone is equal before the law”. Not any more, it appears, after the Sentencing Council for England and Wales decided, against the better advice of the Justice Secretary and much of the judiciary, to change guidelines to potentially give a “get out of jail” card to whole sections of society.

Yesterday this paper reported that new guidelines had come into effect, telling judges and magistrates they must consider “difficult and/or deprived background or personal circumstance” when sentencing criminals. In other words, give more lenient sentences for criminals from poorer backgrounds.

Such a blanket decision is disgraceful and needs reversing, especially given that a judge, when setting a sentence, will look at the specific mitigating circumstances of the individual. As the Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary Alex Chalk – like me, a minister accountable to the public – said to the council in his response to their consultation; these guidelines are at best “patronising”. At worst, they could create a two-tier justice system, where entirely subjective judgements like a person’s upbringing, education and “negative experiences of authority” determine the severity of their sentences.

I completely share his concerns. We cannot have a sentencing system which equates being poorer with being more likely to commit crimes. Justice should not be means-tested.

As a Barnardo’s child and someone who spent their earliest years in care, should I be treated differently by the courts? Of course not. We cannot give the impression that some people have more leeway to commit crimes based on their upbringing and backgrounds. We certainly can’t claim that unemployment is somehow a free pass to breaking the law. Crime is a choice regardless of who you are.

Many judges themselves will have come from poorer backgrounds. I work with many MPS who did. People might not have the same privileges growing up, but as adults we all have the choice about how we live our lives.

As Alex Chalk said, how patronising it is to hard-working families on lower incomes to suppose that their children are more likely to become criminals. And how dangerous it is to turn our judges into social analysts or psychiatrists, to have them examine someone’s entire life before passing a sentence. How can this ever be fairly and consistently examined? Indeed, it is often those from the poorest backgrounds who are most likely to be victims of crime and look to the courts to deliver justice.

The council’s guidelines also refer to “negative experiences of authority” as a factor for judges to consider. I find this particularly concerning. What constitutes a “negative experience”, and how on earth can a court verify this? If you’ve committed crime and had a “negative” experience of the police should that excuse future crime? Of course not. This will be a defence lawyer’s dream.

So I urge the council to reconsider. Our justice system must be accountable to the public. As ministers we are accountable and we are saying that these guidelines risk undermining justice and the fight against crime.

They risk politicising judicial decisions and undermining the independence of the judiciary. Judges should always be free to make decisions based on the facts of the case in front of them. Such a fundamental change should not be brought in without understanding the huge potential it has for justice in the UK. They need to think again.