1 Introduction
1. Out-of-court disposals (OOCDs) can provide the
police with simple, swift and proportionate responses to low-risk
offending, which they can administer locally without having to
take the matter to court. As a quick and effective means of dealing
with less serious offences, they enable police officers to spend
more time on frontline duties and on tackling more serious crime.
Additionally, OOCDs can often represent an effective response
to offending that can focus on the needs of the victim.
2. There are currently six ways in which offences
can be addressed by the police without the matter proceeding to
court (excluding no further action). These are:
· Cannabis
Warnings: a formal warning from a police officer for simple possession
of cannabis for personal use;
· Fixed
Penalty Notices (FPNs);
· Penalty
Notices for Disorder (PND): an offender is offered the chance
by a police officer to pay a fixed penalty of £50 or £80
to discharge liability for an offence and avoid a court appearance;
· Simple
Cautions: a formal warning from a police officer following an
admission of guilt;
· Conditional
Cautions: a caution with conditions attached. These are issued
to tackle offending behaviour, provide reparation and enable compensation
to be paid to victims, where appropriate. Failure to comply with
the conditions will usually result in prosecution for the original
offence; and
· Community
Resolutions.
3. For police officers, there are clear time benefits
for some OOCDs. For example, a 2011 study found that issuing a
PND on the street, as opposed to at a police station after arrest,
saved nearly three hours of police time. Charging the offender
would take almost five hours more, as well as the time taken to
deal with the case in court.[1]
Richard Monkhouse, Chairman of the Magistrates' Association, told
us that OOCDs "are absolutely right for low-level offending
and for first-time offenders because otherwise if every case came
into court the courts could not manage and would be seriously
clogged up".[2]
4. Until the introduction of Penalty Notices for
Disorder (PNDs) in 2004 and cannabis warnings in 2005, the only
OOCD available to police was a caution. From March 2004, the use
of OOCDs increased rapidly and peaked in March 2008, before decreasing
year on year, as shown in figure 1. The increase coincided with
the introduction in 2001 of a target to increase offences "brought
to justice", a descriptor which includes those dealt with
out-of-court. The subsequent decrease coincided with the replacement
of the target, in April 2008, with one placing more emphasis on
bringing serious crimes to justice. This new target was
subsequently removed in May 2010.Figure
1: Out-of-court disposals issued, by disposal, 12 months ending
March 20014 to March 2014
Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/346639/criminal-justice-statistics-april-2013-to-march-2014.pdf
5. The use of OOCDs has decreased in the last year
by 15%.[3] Each type of
OOCD showed a decrease when compared with the previous year, continuing
the longer-term trend in the use of OOCDs since March 2008, which
has seen a 52% decrease in their use.[4]
Chief Constable Lynne Owens QPM, of Surrey Police, National Policing
Lead on OOCDs, told us that at the peak, about 10% of all solved
cases were dealt with by out-of-court disposals, whereas in 2014
it was only 4.8%. She added that OOCDs were "a really important
tool for the victim, the offender and in the interests of bureaucracy
and therefore cost" but that they had brought confusion,
because the system had grown up organically over time and there
had been a lack of understanding about what kind of disposal was
most suitable in each case.[5]
1 https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmic/media/exercising-discretion-the-gateway-to-justice-20110609.pdf Back
2
Q18 Back
3
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/376898/criminal-justice-statistics-update_to-june-2014.pdf Back
4
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/346639/criminal-justice-statistics-april-2013-to-march-2014.pdf Back
5
Q52 Back
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