Philip Davies: Criminal dishonesty over jail sentences

WHILE observing the proceedings in Bradford Crown Court the other day, I was reminded yet again of the dishonesty of the sentences handed down by judges.
Conservative MP for Shipley, Philip Davies.Conservative MP for Shipley, Philip Davies.
Conservative MP for Shipley, Philip Davies.

This is, of course, not the fault of the judiciary. In fact, I am pleased to see there is much support for making sentences more honest.

I really cannot put it better than the words of retiring Judge Mary Jane Mowat who, in an interview, said: “One thing that judges can’t change is the prison regulations, which to me are the biggest fraud on the public ever. You get a three-year sentence and in fact it means only one-and-a-half years, it’s automatically one half.

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“Now the public were never told this was going to happen, it was done by a sort of statutory regulation. And in fact people are by and large getting out well before that on a home detention curfew on a tag. The public are beginning to wake up to it but it has been happening for years, quietly, without it ever being announced. So that’s why I say it’s a fraud on the public.”

So the burglar sentenced to two years will be out in just one year – or even less.

Such dishonesty in other fields would not be tolerated, so why is it accepted in such an important area as our criminal justice system?

As I have written before in this paper, the argument used in support of these complicated sentences related to when offenders were released early for good behaviour in prison – although I personally would rather have seen an increase in sentence for bad behaviour.

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However, release is no longer dependent on any behaviour in many cases. As early release is so routine, why don’t we say that judges should just sentence offenders to the time they will actually serve?

Anyone then watching sentences being handed down in courts at the reduced “half price or less” rate would be well aware exactly what was going on. Of course, this might make the public even less confident that justice was actually being done in many cases , which is one of the reasons those who forsee this reaction do not want anything changed.

I believe that if we had more honesty in sentencing it would be a good starting point to getting proper sentences for some of our worst criminals.

Figures which came to light just this week highlight the problem of letting offenders out early. One in 12 of those released from prison committed another offence during the first 18 days of their release. This is a shocking statistic.

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One example that has come to my attention is that of a serial local offender released early on licence only to commit multiple offences soon afterwards.

People might be forgiven for thinking that the whole point of being released early on licence is that you have to comply with licence conditions and not re-offend. Failing to comply or reoffending would, you might imagine, mean being returned to prison to serve the original sentence. Unfortunately, thanks to the increased use of “fixed term recalls”, this is not the case.

This offender was only returned to prison for a fixed term recall of 28 days for the breach of his licence, and not until early 2017 as he would have been if he had been made to serve his sentence in full as punishment for committing these further offences. How can that be right?

Yet, he is not alone. Recent answers to Parliamentary Questions I asked show that, for example, a staggering 3,849 burglars were returned to prison for just 28 days in 2014 for breaching their licence and did not serve the remainder of their sentence. Even more worryingly, 546 criminals with convictions for violence against the person offences were given fixed term recalls – these included those convicted of wounding, manslaughter and even murder.

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As I have told Justice Ministers, this all takes the dishonesty in sentences to a new low.

I also understand that there are some who are deliberately getting themselves recalled to prison for the 28 days in order to make money inside dealing drugs or committing other crimes. You literally could not make that up.

I believe that if you are let out of prison early, and you do not behave or you reoffend, there should be no other possible course of action but for you to be returned to custody to serve the rest of your sentence in prison. Or, better still, as I started off by saying, offenders should have to serve the sentence they are given by the court in the first place and then that would be the end of the matter.

Philip Davies is the Conservative MP for Shipley.

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