Re: Police cautions and on-the-spot fines leave magistrates with nothing to do

It happens that Webmanager_CritEst formulated :
August 28, 2008

Police cautions and on-the-spot fines leave magistrates with nothing
to do

Richard Ford, Home Correspondent

Adult and youth courts in the Midlands are being cancelled because
more offenders are being given on-the-spot fines, according a letter
leaked to The Times.

Magistrates have agreed to reduce the number of criminal courts
sitting because fewer offenders are being taken to formal court
proceedings.

The letter, sent to all magistrates in Staffordshire, is the latest
sign of the consequences of the increasing use of on-the-spot fines
and cautions to deal with offenders.

It says: “As a result of a reducing workload directly attributable to
increased use of fixed penalties and cautions by the police and Crown
Prosecution Service, a number of courts have had to be cancelled each
week at each of our court houses.”

The letter, from Staffordshire’s justices’ clerk, goes on to explain
that the overall number of courts in the county is to be cut because
of falling demand.

He adds: “I am deeply concerned about the increased use by the
prosecuting agencies of judicial powers but it seems that those powers
are likely to be used increasingly given that they are a cheaper means
of sentencing than by going through a judicial process.”

He says that one longer-term effect of less court work will be in the
county’s ability to recruit magistrates.

The number of crimes dealt with by convictions in the courts was
overtaken for the first time in 2006 by the number handled by the
police through cautions and fixed-penalty fines.

The number of penalty notices issued for disorder in the 43 police
forces in England and Wales rose by 37 per cent from 146,500 in 2005
to 201,200 in 2007. The largest number of these were for behaviour
likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress and being drunk and
disorderly.

The number issued for shoplifting rose from 23,800 in 2005 to 42,700
in 2006.

In Staffordshire penalty notices for disorder issued to all offenders
rose from 1,450 in 2004 to 3,261 in 2006.

Magistrates’ court proceedings for shoplifting have fallen by 29 per
cent in the past four years, for drunkenness by 51 per cent and for
being drunk and disorderly by 44 per cent.

Nick Herbert, the Shadow Justice Secretary, said: “The increasing use
of penalty notices is leading to soft justice, where offenders who
should go before the courts are able to escape with a fine which they
might not even pay, and avoid a criminal record.

“Magistrates’ courts are the places where summary justice should be
done and seen to be done, and justice is undermined if the courts are
by-passed through the inappropriate use of administrative sanctions.”

On-the-spot fines were introduced to allow police to deal with simple
and straightforward cases promptly, leaving courts to handle disputed
and more complex offences.

Barristers and solicitors have complained that fines and cautions are
being used for more serious crime even though they are meant to be
used only for minor offences.

Cindy Barnett, the chairman of the Magistrates’ Association, said: “We
are extremely concerned if an inappropriate use of out-of-courts
disposals is removing serious cases from court.”

But she said that the workload of courts varied across the country. In
some areas the courts’ workload had fallen but in other parts of
England and Wales it was increasing.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article4622156.ece

***

That explains all the new posters, here.

WM
www.critest.com

Would it not be a better and less costly method if the police were allowed in petty offences to be able to give the offender a good kick up the arse ! Within reason of course and by that I mean a kick up the arse and not a punch to the scrotum.

There is no happy medium, I thought I agreed with caning in school but when I remember how some of the teachers used to beat the boys, myself included then overall it is probably for the better that they stopped it. If they applied the cane with regulations then it would not be such a bad thing.

--
Count Baldoni


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