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Sentencing and Criminal Justice

Providing unrivalled coverage of one of the most high-profile stages in the criminal

justice process, this book examines the key issues in sentencing policy and practice.

It provides an up-to-date account of the legislation on sentencing together with

the ever-increasing amount of Court of Appeal case law. The aim of the book is to

examine English sentencing law in its context, drawing not only upon legislation and

the decisions of the courts but also upon the findings of research and on theoretical

justifications for punishment.

The analysis is given depth and perspective by examining the interaction between

the law and the wider criminal justice system, including the prison and probation

services. The book also discusses the influence of statements from politicians, the

mass media and public opinion. It engages with the theory of sentencing and the

reasons for depriving offenders of their liberty. It looks at the statistical evidence on

the effectiveness of sentences, and pays particular attention to difficult questions

about aggravating and mitigating factors in sentencing, the proper approach to

dealing with persistent offenders, the relevance of race, gender and unemployment,

and the growth of ‘preventive’ orders (such as anti-social behaviour orders) which

are not sentences as such but which impose restrictions and obligations.

This new edition has been extensively revised so as to integrate the new laws

introduced by the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which has brought sweeping reforms

to English sentencing.

Andrew Ashworth is Vinerian Professor of English Law at the University of

Oxford. His previous titles include Principles of Criminal Law (4th edn, 2003), The

Criminal Process(3rd edn, 2005, with Mike Redmayne) andProportionate Sentencing

(2005, with Andrew von Hirsch).

The Law in Context Series

Editors: William Twining (University College London)

and Christopher McCrudden (Lincoln College, Oxford)

Since 1970 the Law in Context series has been in the forefront of the movement to

broaden the study of law. It has been a vehicle for the publication of innovative scholarly

books that treat law and legal phenomena critically in their social, political and economic

contexts from a variety of perspectives. The series particularly aims to publish scholarly

legal writing that brings fresh perspectives to bear on new and existing areas of law taught

in universities. A contextual approach involves treating legal subjects broadly, using

materials from other social sciences, and from any other discipline that helps to explain

the operation in practice of the subject under discussion. It is hoped that this orientation

is at once more stimulating and more realistic than the bare exposition of legal rules. The

series includes original books that have a different emphasis from traditional legal

textbooks, while maintaining the same high standards of scholarship. They are written

primarily for undergraduate and graduate students of law and of other disciplines, but

most also appeal to a wider readership. In the past, most books in the series have focused

on English law, but recent publications include books on European law, globalisation,

transnational legal processes, and comparative law.

Books in the Series

Anderson, Schum & Twining: Analysis of Evidence

Ashworth: Sentencing and Criminal Justice

Barton & Douglas: Law and Parenthood

Bell: French Legal Cultures

Bercusson: European Labour Law

Birkinshaw: European Public Law

Birkinshaw: Freedom of Information: The Law, the Practice and the Ideal

Cane: Atiyah’s Accidents, Compensation and the Law

Clarke & Kohler: Property Law

Collins: The Law of Contract

Davies: Perspectives on Labour Law

De Sousa Santos: Toward a New Legal Common Sense

Diduck: Law’s Families

Elworthy & Holder: Environmental Protection: Text and Materials

Fortin: Children’s Rights and the Developing Law

Glover-Thomas: Reconstructing Mental Health Law and Policy

Gobert & Punch: Rethinking Corporate Crime

Harlow & Rawlings: Law and Administration: Text and Materials

Harris: An Introduction to Law

Harris: Remedies in Contract and Tort

Harvey: Seeking Asylum in the UK: Problems and Prospects

Hervey&McHale: Health Law and the European Union

Lacey & Wells: Reconstructing Criminal Law

Lewis: Choice and the Legal Order: Rising above Politics

Likosky: Transnational Legal Processes

Maughan & Webb: Lawyering Skills and the Legal Process

Moffat: Trusts Law: Text and Materials

Norrie: Crime, Reason and History

O’Dair: Legal Ethics

Oliver: Common Values and the Public–Private Divide

Oliver & Drewry: The Law and Parliament

Picciotto: International Business Taxation

Reed: Internet Law: Text and Materials

Richardson: Law, Process and Custody

Roberts & Palmer: Dispute Processes: ADR and the Primary Forms of Decision Making

Scott & Black: Cranston’s Consumers and the Law

Seneviratne: Ombudsmen: Public Services and Administrative Justice

Stapleton: Product Liability

Turpin: British Government and the Constitution: Text, Cases and Materials

Twining: Globalisation and Legal Theory

Twining: Rethinking Evidence

Twining & Miers: How to do Things with Rules

Ward: A Critical Introduction to European Law

Ward: Shakespeare and Legal Imagination

Zander: Cases and Materials on the English Legal System

Zander: The Law-Making Process

Sentencing and

Criminal Justice

Fourth edition

Andrew Ashworth

Vinerian Professor of English Law,

University of Oxford

cambridge university press

Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo

Cambridge University Press

The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb2 2ru, UK

First published in print format

isbn-13 978-0-521-67405-8

isbn-13 978-0-511-13466-1

© Andrew Ashworth 2005

2005

Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521674058

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of

relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place

without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

isbn-10 0-511-13466-5

isbn-10 0-521-67405-0

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls

for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not

guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

www.cambridge.org

paperback

eBook (EBL)

eBook (EBL)

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Contents

Preface page x

Table of statutes xi

Table of cases xvi

1 An introduction to English sentencing 1

1.1 Courts and crimes 1

1.2 The available sentences 2

1.3 The general statistical background 8

1.4 The criminal process 22

1.5 The formal sources of sentencing decisions 31

1.6 Informal influences on sentencing practice 41

2 Sentencing and the constitution 50

2.1 The separation of powers in sentencing 50

2.2 The Sentencing Advisory Panel and the Sentencing

Guidelines Council 54

2.3 The judiciary, the executive and sentencing policy 58

2.4 The Judicial Studies Board 61

2.5 The position of the magistracy 62

2.6 Conclusions 66

3 Sentencing aims, principles and policies 67

3.1 The aims of the criminal justice system 67

3.2 Justifying state punishment 70

3.3 The rationales of sentencing 72

3.4 Some principles and policies 91

3.5 Sentencing rationales and English criminal justice 98

4 Elements of proportionality 102

4.1 The proportionality principle 102

4.2 Opinions about offence-seriousness 104

vii

viii Contents

4.3 Developing parameters of ordinal proportionality 106

4.4 Offence-seriousness in practice 114

4.5 Individual culpability 142

4.6 Proportionality, human rights and European law 147

4.7 Proportionality and offence-seriousness 148

5 Aggravation and mitigation 151

5.1 Some preliminary problems of principle 151

5.2 Aggravation as increased seriousness 153

5.3 Mitigation as diminished seriousness 160

5.4 Personal mitigation 163

5.5 Mitigation and aggravation in practice 178

5.6 Aggravation and mitigation in theory 180

6 Persistence, prevention and prediction 182

6.1 Historical introduction 182

6.2 Three approaches to punishing persistence 184

6.3 Previous convictions and the Criminal Justice Act 2003 191

6.4 The problem of ‘professional’ criminals 201

6.5 Persistent petty offenders 202

6.6 The prevention of ‘anti-social behaviour’ 203

6.7 Minimum sentences and selective incapacitation 206

6.8 ‘Dangerous offenders’ and the 2003 Act 210

6.9 Conclusion 217

7 Equality before the law 219

7.1 The principle and its challengers 219

7.2 Race 221

7.3 Gender 224

7.4 Employment status 227

7.5 Financial circumstances 230

7.6 Social status 233

7.7 Equality, parsimony and risk 234

8 Multiple offenders 239

8.1 Charging the multiple offender 240

8.2 Concurrent or consecutive? 242

8.3 Effect of the statutory principle 247

8.4 Consecutive sentences and the totality principle 248

8.5 Multiple offenders and proportionality 254

9 Custodial sentencing 255

9.1 The state of the prisons 255

Contents ix

9.2 The use of imprisonment 260

9.3 Principles for the use of custodial sentences 265

9.4 The custody threshold and short custodial sentences 271

9.5 Custodial sentences of twelve months and longer: release

on licence 281

9.6 Demographic features of the prison population 285

9.7 Conclusions 291

10 Non-custodial sentencing 293

10.1 A brief history 293

10.2 The absolute discharge 295

10.3 Conditional discharges and bind-overs 296

10.4 Compensation orders 298

10.5 Fines 302

10.6 The generic community sentence 312

10.7 Deferment of sentence 326

10.8 Conclusions 327

11 Procedural issues and ancillary orders 332

11.1 The sentencing framework of the 2003 Act 332

11.2 Ancillary orders 333

11.3 The obligation to give reasons for sentence 340

11.4 The factual basis for sentencing 342

11.5 Police antecedents statements 346

11.6 The role of the prosecution 347

11.7 Pre-sentence reports 348

11.8 Defence speech in mitigation 350

11.9 The role of the victim 352

12 Special sentencing powers 359

12.1 Young offenders 359

12.2 Young adult offenders 368

12.3 Mentally disordered offenders 370

13 Conclusions 380

13.1 The responsibility of sentencing 380

13.2 The new penal ladder 382

13.3 Delivering change: the guideline system 384

13.4 Risk, public protection and trifurcation 385

13.5 Proportionality and social justice 387

13.6 Political courage and criminal justice 388

References 390

Index 409

Preface

In the five years since the third edition, the brisk pace of change in sentencing set

in the 1990s has continued with vigour. Most significant is the Criminal Justice Act

2003. Over half of its 339 sections and 30 of its 38 schedules relate to sentencing.

Not all of those provisions are yet in force – at the time of writing, it appears that the

new sentence of custody plus and the raising of the magistrates’ courts’ sentencing

limit from 6 to 12 months will not be brought in until autumn 2006. Several chap￾ters have needed extensive rewriting in order to reflect the provisions of the 2003

Act. Attention has also been paid to other significant changes in sentencing – the

continued rise in the prison population to over 75,000; the continued increase in

reliance on the National Probation Service for risk management and rehabilitation

in the community; the extension of social control through the anti-social behaviour

order and the many other preventive orders and the concomitant blurring of bound￾aries, rights and responsibilities that this entails; the development of the guideline

movement in sentencing, and the unexpected return of the Court of Appeal to the

practice of laying down guidelines or ‘guidance’; and many other changes.

I ceased to gather material for this edition at the end of March 2005, but room

has been found for a few subsequent developments. I am grateful for the term’s

sabbatical leave granted by the University of Oxford to enable me to push forward

with this project, and also to the Law Faculty at the University of Tasmania for its

warm welcome and generous support during my visit in January–February 2005.

I received helpful suggestions about the book from a number of colleagues, and my

special thanks go to Elaine Player for commenting on a draft of Chapter 9 and to

Julian Roberts for commenting on a draft of Chapter 6. And, above all, I owe a great

debt to Von, whose support for me throughout this project was unwavering even

though I had to spend much more time than anticipated at my desk.

Andrew Ashworth

All Souls College, Oxford

May 2005

x

Table of statutes

Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003 206

Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security

Act 2001

s. 39 154

Children Act 1989 365

Children and Young Persons Act 1933

s. 44 74

Children and Young Persons Act 1969

359

Company Directors Disqualification

Act 1986 336

Courts Act 2003 62, 303, 312

s. 36 312

ss. 95–97 312

Crime and Disorder Act 1998 7, 25, 32,

89, 153–5, 361

s. 1 203

s. 1(11) 297

ss. 8–10 365

s. 28 154

s. 29 153

s. 30 153

s. 31 153

s. 32 153

s. 37 7, 74

s. 37(1)–(2) 361

s. 41 361

s. 61 294

s. 65 362

s. 65(1) 362

s. 66 362

s. 66(2)(b) 362

s. 66(4) 297

s. 80 33, 54

s. 80(3) 38

s. 81 54

Crime (Sentences) Act 1997 32, 52, 60,

66, 81, 98, 207, 211, 281

s. 3 207

s. 4 134, 208

s. 45 376

Criminal Damage Act 1971 51

Criminal Injuries Compensation Act

1995 298

Criminal Justice Act 1948 183

Criminal Justice Act 1967 183

Criminal Justice Act 1972 293, 298

Criminal Justice Act 1982 293, 298, 360

Criminal Justice Act 1988 334

s. 36 40

s. 104 298

Criminal Justice Act 1991 2, 73, 74, 95,

98, 99, 102, 133, 183, 214, 281,

293, 294, 298, 303, 304, 305, 312,

313, 322, 348, 360

s. 1(2)(a) 271

s. 2(2)(a) 100

s. 2(2)(b) 183

s. 4 290, 377

s. 6 322

s. 29(2) 153

s. 95(1)(b) 224

Criminal Justice Act 1993 98, 193, 294,

305

xi

xii Table of statutes

Criminal Justice Act 2003 2, 4, 6, 25,

27, 32, 33, 35, 38, 39, 46, 57, 62,

63, 66, 81, 95, 97, 99, 103, 111,

122, 148, 151, 153, 172, 191–201,

207–13, 217, 230, 234, 247, 281–5,

288, 292, 293, 295, 297, 303, 314,

315, 350, 352, 362, 365, 367, 374,

384, 385

part 12 368

Chapter 5 210

s. 23 25

s. 31(3) 214

s. 142 74, 99, 102, 138–9, 221, 323

s. 142(1) 74

s. 142(1)(d) 80

s. 142(2)(a) 362

s. 143 74

s. 143(1) 74, 99, 102, 103, 198

s. 143(2) 75, 191, 195, 196, 197, 198,

199, 202, 203, 205, 214, 217, 315

s. 143(2)(a) 197

s. 143(2)(b) 197

s. 143(3) 153, 246

s. 144 27, 29, 164

s. 144(1) 163, 164

s. 144(2) 163, 164, 207

s. 145 96

s. 145(2) 153

s. 146 96, 155

s. 146(3) 155

s. 147(1) 99

s. 148 4

s. 148(1) 99, 103, 247, 313, 314

s. 148(2) 321–2, 324

s. 148(2)(a) 322

s. 148(2)(b) 322

s. 151 203, 314, 323

s. 152(2) 5, 99, 103, 203, 247, 271,

272, 274, 277, 280, 309, 313

s. 153(2) 5, 6, 99, 100, 103, 247, 283

s. 154 279

s. 156 349

s. 157 290, 377

s. 157(2) 290, 377

s. 161 322

s. 162 307

s. 163 309

s. 164 4

s. 164(1) 307

s. 164(2) 306, 310

s. 164(3) 306, 310

s. 164(4) 307, 309, 310

s. 166 151, 179, 248

s. 166(1) 160

s. 166(5) 290, 377

s. 167(9) 55

s. 169 54

s. 170 34, 41, 54

s. 170(2) 34

s. 170(5) 34

s. 170(5)(c) 96

s. 170(8) 34

s. 170(9) 34

s. 171 33

s. 171(1) 34

s. 171(4) 34

s. 172 57, 341

s. 172(1) 34

s. 174 352

s. 174(1) 341

s. 174(2) 151, 341, 342

s. 174(2)(a) 34, 37, 341

s. 174(2)(d) 164

s. 174(2)(e) 181

s. 177 315

s. 177(3)(b) 318

s. 177(4) 318

s. 177(6) 324

s. 178 325

s. 179 325

s. 181 5, 114

s. 181(3)(b) 279

s. 182 5

s. 183 5, 277

s. 189 5, 275

s. 190 275

Table of statutes xiii

s. 191 275

s. 192 275

s. 199 315

s. 200(1) 315

s. 201 317

s. 201(2) 317

s. 202 317

s. 203 317

s. 204 318

s. 205 319

s. 206 319

s. 207 319, 372

s. 208 319, 372

s. 209 319

s. 210 319

s. 211 319

s. 212 320

s. 213 320

s. 214 321

s. 215(2) 318

s. 218(4) 318

s. 224 210

s. 225 210, 377

s. 225(1)(a) 211

s. 225(1)(b) 214

s. 225(2)(b) 211

s. 226 211, 368, 377

s. 226(1)(b) 214

s. 226(3) 212, 368

s. 227 377

s. 227(1)(b) 214

s. 227(2) 213

s. 227(2)(b) 213

s. 227(4) 213

s. 228 368, 377

s. 228(1)(b)(i) 214

s. 229 210, 214, 387

s. 229(2) 215

s. 238 282

s. 247(3) 213

s. 269 32, 52, 117

s. 269(3) 117

s. 278 326

s. 285 122

s. 287 6, 164

Sch. 8 325

Sch. 12 275

Sch. 15 212, 214

Sch. 16 214

Sch. 17 214

Sch. 18 212

Sch. 21 32, 37, 117

Sch. 22 37, 117

Sch. 23 172, 326

Sch. 32

para. 38 377

Sch. 37 34

Criminal Justice and Court Services

Act 2000 295

s. 28 336

s. 41 140

Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001

s. 33 338

Criminal Justice and Public Order Act

1994

s. 48 163, 167

Criminal Law Act 1977 1

Criminal Procedure and Investigations

Act 1996

s. 49 29

Criminal Procedure (Insanity and

Unfitness to Plead) Act 1991 370

Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims

Act 2004 299, 352

s. 17 241

s. 19 241

s. 32 299

ss. 35–44 299

ss. 48–51 299

s. 55 299

Drug Trafficking Act 1986 333, 334,

337

s. 38(4) 333

Firearms Act 1968 242

s. 51A 377

s. 51A(2) 164