Magistrates and short jail sentences | Letters
by Letters from Economics | The Guardian on (#46Z9A)
Martin Steer JP and Christine Walters respond to Rory Stewart's suggestion that jail terms of less than six months could be scrapped
Petty offenders are only jailed way into a long pattern of offending and failure to respond to non-custodial sentences. Prison is employed by magistrates usually as a last resort as the bench knows full well that rehabilitation in these days of austerity is unlikely - it is unlikely even for longer sentences.
When the courts have tried all non-custodial punishments escalating from discharges, through fines, to low-level community penalties, medium community penalties, then high-level community penalties, and the drug user/habitual yob on a hair trigger/recidivist hasn't responded, what does Rory Stewart suggest they do next (Jail terms of six months or less could be scrapped, prisons minister suggests, theguardian.com, 12 January)?
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