Magistrates in England and Wales could be given powers to hand down longer custodial sentences under proposals to help reduce the backlog in crown courts and prisons. The move could allow magistrates to try more serious crimes, and double the maximum punishments handed out for an offence from six to 12 months, helping a system […]
Magistrates could give longer sentences under new proposals Read More »
It cannot have gone unnoticed, that sentence lengths in the Crown Court have increased exponentially in recent years. Sentences of over 30 years for drug convictions were, only five years ago, almost unheard of. Not so now. Figures released in 2024 show that there has been an average sentence length increase from 14.5 months to
Is There to be a Reversal in the Trend of Huge Sentence Increases? Read More »
The prison population of England and Wales has hit a record high after rising by nearly 1,000 in four weeks. Labour has also activated Operation Early Dawn in parts of England and Wales where defendants will be summoned to a magistrates court only when a space in prison is available. The sharp increase is believed to have been driven
Prison Population hits record high in England and Wales Read More »
