Magistrates ‘should lose jailing power’
Magistrates should be stripped of their power to hand down prison sentences, campaigners said yesterday.
The move would “reduce short-term sentences and compel magistrates to work more closely with community projects and programmes”, the Howard League for Penal Reform said.
But the Magistrates Association said the “unwarranted attack” on members of the judiciary showed “a complete lack of understanding of the nature of offenders who appear in magistrates’ courts”.
More than 50,000 prison sentences were handed down by magistrates in 2008, the average length being less than three months,