RJC response to Sentencing Council guidelines on theft offences
The Sentencing Council has this week published new guidelines to sentencing theft offences, along with its response to consultation submissions on this topic.
The new guidelines take an important step, marking a distinction between the material value and the emotional value of items stolen from the victims. The assessment of harm to the victim now contains not only financial harm and inconvenience, but emotional distress, fear and loss of confidence caused by the crime, as well as the non-monetary value of the items taken.
We already know that similar crimes can have a very different impact on individual victims and the RJC are pleased to see the new guidelines reflect this. However where the harm to the victim is assessed as high, this only incurs a stricter sentence for the offender. While in cases where there are specific factors relating to the offender, the guidelines suggest that the judge orders treatment as part of a community sentence, the same option is not given for the judge to recommend restorative justice. We were disappointed to see that, even where the victim has suffered harm and the offender is remorseful, the sentencing guidelines do not formalise the judge’s power to recommend restorative justice as part of a community sentence. A stricter sentence for the offender is not necessarily the best outcome for victims who have suffered harm.
Restorative justice is an intervention with known benefits to victim satisfaction, and judges have the power to recommend restorative justice to take place as part of a Rehabilitation Activity Requirement (RAR). In the Sentencing Council’s response to the consultation submissions, they state: “The Council does not believe that a reference to RJ is appropriate. The guidelines deal with the sentencing of offenders only, and RJ is considered pre-sentence.” The RJC would have liked the option for restorative justice to form part of a RAR to be formalised in the guidelines.
Restorative justice is an important intervention for the victim and the offender, and the judiciary has an important role to play in ensuring that it is made available. While restorative justice can be offered pre-sentence, sentencers also have the specific power to recommend it as part of a Rehabilitation Activity Requirement.
We hope that the Sentencing Council’s omission from their new guidelines does not prevent crown judges, district judges and magistrates from making sure that victims are given the opportunity to take part in restorative conferencing as part of sentence in cases where it is appropriate.
The guidelines can be viewed in full here.