Katie Wheatley, Head of our Crime, Fraud and Regulatory team, has been quoted in Solicitors Journal, New Law Journal and Edward Fennell’s Legal Diary. She speaks on the long-standing issues within the justice system and the recommendations in the Independent Sentencing Review, led by former Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary the Rt Hon David Gauke, including a progressive move towards short-term sentences being served in the community.

These articles discuss the Independent Sentencing Review, published last week, which suggests significant reforms to the UK’s justice system. The review aims to make sentencing fairer, more effective and sustainable by promoting rehabilitation, reducing short prison sentences, expanding community alternatives and recommending evidence-based policies.

Katie comments:

Punishment and reduction of reoffending risk are key tenets of sentencing policy, but for many years the focus by successive governments on punishment has led to more people being locked up and serving longer prison sentences in overcrowded and filthy prisons, leading to high reoffending rates. 

But it is not just prisons that are under strain. Probation officers do a vital job in supervising prisoners on licence and community orders.

The proposals are for earlier release of lower risk offenders on licence, a move away from short prison sentences to sentences served in the community.

Punitive elements and meaningful interventions to tackle reoffending risk, offer a progressive alternative that could work better if the probation service is provided with adequate resources to manage the increased workload.

Otherwise the enactment of these proposals may simply keep the revolving prison doors turning.

The trio of articles can be seen below:

• Prison reforms aim to cut numbers – Solicitors Journal
• Gauke’s radical shake-up of sentencing – New Law Journal
• Edward Fennell’s Legal Diary