3
Apr
2013
By Calvin at 10:03 GMT, 13 years ago
Justice Secretary, Damian Green, was interviewed on Sky News this morning about a review into the use of cautions by the police.
It seems he has three concerns:
- People seem to be getting cautions for offences that are too serious for cautioning
- Many people receive multiple cautions before they eventually get to court
- There’s a huge disparity between different police force areas
The review into cautioning will report by the end of May and the Government may change the law to ensure that cautioning is used more appropriately by police.
The numbers of police cautions have already been falling from a 12 month to September 2007 peak of 367,300 to 205,700 in 2012.
TCPW Comment
It seems to us that fewer police cautions would lead to:
- More police and CPS time spent on prosecution
- Busier courts
- A few more people getting sent to prison
- More fines imposed on the convicted (some of which won’t ever get collected)
- More work for the Probation Service
- Happier victims, knowing that somebody has actually been punished for the crime committed against them.
So how can the Government do this at a time when we all thought they were trying to reduce costs and (as we thought) reduce the prison population?
Well it seems they may have a little spare capacity in the prisons. We took a look at the prison population for Friday 22nd March this year and noted that it stands at 84,596, which is down from approximately 87,760 twelve months ago. The ‘useable operational capacity’ of the prisons (as they call it) is currently 88,004, so there are about 3,400 spaces going begging.
The police chiefs have been doing a good job at reducing their costs at the same time as crime has been falling. With fewer crimes being committed there’s more capacity in the courts as well, so everything is rosy in the garden of justice and everyone appears to be a winner!
I bet the Government can’t believe their luck!
Original story Sky News: http://news.sky.com/story/1073221/police-urged-to-give-out-fewer-cautions
