PRT calls for fundamental reform of sentencing to address prison capacity crisis

Key findings reveal that:

• The prison population has doubled in the past two decades, rising from 44,500 in 1993 to over 88,000 by 2024.
• The growth in the prison population has been underpinned by a stream of criminal justice legislation to increase the length of sentences, minimum terms, maximum terms, as well as the use of mandatory sentences and preventative detention.
• People in prison are held in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions which do little to rehabilitate them, and act as a punishment over and above a deprivation of liberty.
• The growing use of preventative detention, recall and the increase in the number of people on remand means that over half the people in prison who do not know when they will be released. This lack of certainty can lead to psychological damage and potentially increases risk factors.
• Long sentences can actually increase reoffending rates by eroding crucial protective factors such as family ties and employment prospects.
• Research showing that community sentences are often more effective than short prison sentences at preventing further crime, but their use has more than halved in a decade.

The submission recommends significant changes across three major categories:

Changes to sentencing law and practice

• Promoting individualised sentencing so that sentences take full account of needs and circumstances, including the impact of prison, and removing mandatory sentencing (in all but murder cases, which are the subject of a separate review) and minimum sentences.
• Simplifying custodial sentences to ensure that they can be clearly understood.
• Reducing sentence starting points in sentencing guidelines and in legislation for custodial sentences by a significant proportion in consultation with stakeholders including victims.
• Creating a presumption that all sentences of deprivation of liberty of three years or less should be served in the community unless there are exceptional circumstances.
• Removing powers of magistrates to sentence to deprivation of liberty except for a breach, which would only result in a prison term where electronic monitoring has failed, and increasing their powers to impose community orders and oversight of certain orders.

Operational changes

• Extending the use of Home Detention Curfew (HDC) for those sentenced to imprisonment.
• Simplifying release mechanisms for prison to restore honesty and transparency in sentencing by restoring automatic release in non-parole cases to a consistent point not greater than half-way (we would urge caution in using incentivised early release).
• Protecting and enhancing judicial oversight of decisions concerning liberty after sentence.
• Extending the High Court’s power of review to enable a reduction in the minimum term at the halfway point in indeterminate sentences with minimum terms of ten years or more for exceptional progress to incentivise positive behaviour.
• Creating an independent Parole Board under His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunal Service with enhanced resources to ensure timely reviews that can be meaningful and effective and where the burden is on the state to justify continued detention in the preventative phase.
• Better use should be made of open prisons, making them easier to get to and ensuring that, once in open conditions, prisoners, including those with protected characteristics, are appropriately supported and able to progress effectively through their sentence towards safe release.
• Making better use of resettlement units in prison and Release on Temporary Licence (ROTL) from prison.
• Creating purposes of prison to mirror the purposes of sentencing.
• Reforming sentence planning ensure it is procedurally fair with reviews based on need and evidenced based and shared understanding of risk, enabling a focus on developing protective factors rather than just interventions.
• Establishing a separate inquiry to understand how risk-based decision-making affects progression and release.
• Creating a mechanism to support those on indeterminate sentences who have become stuck in the system similar to Care and Treatment Reviews in hospitals.
• Removing post sentence supervision.
• Changing the use of recall, including consideration of whether it is necessary at all, and if so, whether there should be at the very least a judicial check at the point of recall.
• Creating a new statutory duty to support prison leavers to settle into the community through the provision of bespoke key long-term services.

Increased independent advice, scrutiny and accountability

• Creating an independent panel on sentencing which could include the following features and functions:

– To consider and evaluate new sentences before they are passed into law.

– To monitor the impact of sentences over time, including the impact on the prison population, sentence progression, release and recall to prison.

– Made up of experts, including academics, lawyers, probation practitioners and the judiciary and should be empowered to consult with stakeholders.

• Strengthening the accountability of Parliament and government for the resource implications of the sentencing policies they propose or enact by a requirement for an annual statutory report on sentencing.
• Establishing a fully independent and accountable Women’s Justice Board.
• Strengthening the remit of the Sentencing Council to promote public understanding of sentencing.

The recommendations draw on extensive research from PRT’s Building Futures Programme, which includes input from approximately 800 people with direct experience of long-term imprisonment, and findings from the Independent Commission Into the Experience of Victims and Long-term Prisoners (ICEVLP).