Prison Sentences: Scotland

(asked on 21st January 2019) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have made an assessment of the presumption against prison sentences of three months or less in Scotland; if so, what lessons they have learned from that policy; and what assessment they have made of the success of that policy on the rate of reoffending.


Answered by
 Portrait
Lord Keen of Elie
This question was answered on 4th February 2019

The Scottish Government’s consultation in 2015 on Proposals to Strengthen the Presumption against Short Periods of Imprisonment refers to an evaluation, conducted in 2013-14, of the impact of the current presumption against sentences of 3 months or less (https://www2.gov.scot/Resource/0048/00485797.pdf). It concludes that while the presumption, which has been in place since 2011, underlines the Scottish Government’s intention to move away from short sentences, the three month limit has had little practical impact.

We have noted this assessment and the pledge by the Scottish Government to extend the presumption to sentences of 12 months or less so that it has a more direct impact on reducing short custodial imprisonment.

However, sentencing law in England and Wales is different from that in Scotland. The Criminal Justice Act 2003 already requires a court before imposing a custodial sentence of any length to be satisfied that the offence is so serious that only custody is merited. We therefore already have a requirement in law that custody should be a last resort, but we are looking at what more we can do to emphasise this and will continue to monitor developments in Scotland.

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