| Responding to the news that the Justice Secretary will reject recommendations by the Sentencing Council to strengthen the need for pre-sentence reports for judges, Siân Berry Green MP for Brighton Pavilion said: |
“Failure to implement these changes would be a serious mistake, causing genuine harm to women, families and young people for whom these new recommendations will create much safer sentencing.
“Contrary to reporting, nowhere does the guidance focus primarily on ethnicity. Instead, the guidance, based on strong evidence, helps improve sentencing of women, pregnant people, parents, and young adults, for whom custodial sentences do huge amounts of harm including to their loved ones and wider society.
“Ethnicity and other protected characteristics are mentioned simply so that judges are reminded to consider unconscious bias and that the personal circumstances of offenders may be different than assumed. Bowing to the opposition’s ridiculous accusation of ‘two tier justice’ clearly serves to divide people when we all want to build a genuinely fair and effective justice system.”
ENDS