Cutting crime: better community sentences Contents

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Chapter 2: A key sentencing option

14.Community sentences are a key sentencing option. They can be tailored, in each individual case, to suit the purposes of sentencing, to address the rehabilitative needs of offenders, and to meet the expectations of the public that offenders are punished. For these reasons, which we explore in this chapter, rigorous community sentences could constitute a sound alternative to custody and should be used more frequently.

A bespoke sentence

15.Community sentences can take a wide range of forms, depending on which of the ‘requirements’ are selected by the Court (see Box 2). Once sentenced, an offender serving a community order should also receive bespoke, one-to-one supervision from the Probation Service. That is why community sentences have been described to us as “uniquely flexible compared to fines or custody”.17 As the Ministry of Justice pointed out:

“Community orders play an important role in giving courts flexibility to tailor sentences to the circumstances of particular cases. They allow for a wide range of requirements to be imposed individually or in combination, to deliver the different purposes of sentencing, giving the courts flexibility to tailor the sentence to the risks and needs of individual offenders.”18

16.Magistrates appreciate the flexibility offered by community sentences. Tom Franklin, Chief Executive of the Magistrates’ Association, said that he “would totally agree that they are uniquely flexible” and that “community sentences are at the absolute core of the work of magistrates.”19

17.Referring to the five factors underpinning sentencing (see Box 1), Tom Franklin added:

“The thing about community orders is that they can fulfil all those purposes … Community sentences can provide the most suitable form of punishment, and punishment must be an element in every sentence, but they can also help stop the cycle of offending by providing help that the offender needs.”20

18.While community sentences can take a wide range of forms, there is one constant: every community order must include at least one requirement imposed for the purpose of punishment.21 Andrew Neilson, Campaigns Director at the Howard League for Penal Reform, told us about research by his organisation which found that people serving community sentences found them “harder to complete than a short prison sentence” because they typically last longer, and because offenders “need to attend appointments”, which requires them to be disciplined. Compliance with community sentences was difficult because they had “to manage their day-to-day lives” along with the factors leading them to offend. By contrast, some were finding custody to be more comfortable: “There were people expressing a preference for a short prison sentence over a community sentence, because they would go in, spend a few weeks lying on a prison bunk, come out not challenged in any way and resume the activities they had been before the courts for in the first place.”22

19.The most well-known form of punishment is the unpaid work requirement—often depicted in the media with images of offenders in high-visibility jackets undertaking manual work. Yet, there is more to community sentences than having offenders “cleaning up our neighbourhoods and scrubbing graffiti off walls”, in the Lord Chancellor’s words.23 We heard about the “creative” approach taken by the Probation Service during the COVID-19 pandemic, “such as unpaid work at home that needed to be done by charities”.24 As the Lord Chancellor put it: “We can do this more intelligently with modern solutions for a digital age.”25 We were also told that “a good unpaid work system should have a diversity of placements” and that “we need different places for different people.”26 Dr Hannah Graham, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, University of Stirling, told us about examples of unpaid work placements in Scotland: “environmental and gardening activities; activities which support people experiencing poverty and food insecurity; helping charities and activities that benefit particularly vulnerable members of the community; repairing parks and children’s playgrounds; laundry services for community football strips/sportswear and as an emergency referral for people in need; painting; and bike repair and safety workshops.”27

20.The fact that every community order includes a punitive element meets public expectations—in spite of reports that community orders may be perceived as ‘soft’ (see paragraphs 63–64). Gavin Dingwall, Research Fellow, Sentencing Academy, told us that “There is an expectation, certainly amongst the public, that some form of punishment will follow offending behaviour, and it can be tailored, or should be tailored, to the particular needs of an individual to help with desistance further down the line.”28 In Northern Ireland, before the Enhanced Combination Order was introduced, the Probation Board of Northern Ireland (PBNI) undertook surveys, which showed that “victims would support community sentences if they were satisfied they were being managed robustly and if they could have input to the way the sentences were managed”.29

21.Community sentences can be particularly flexible. When passing a community order, judges and magistrates can select from a range of requirements. This allows them to tailor the sentence to the individual case, setting out how to punish and rehabilitate the offender. This meets the objectives of sentencers, helps the offender, and protects society.

An alternative to custody

Prison Capacity

22.This inquiry was conducted against the backdrop of a crisis in the prison system.30 At the end of May 2023, according to evidence from the National Audit Office, “the prison estate was at 99% of its total capacity, with 85,415 people in prison.”31 As of 13 October 2023, there were 88,225 people in prison, only 557 under the absolute maximum. The prison population grew by 209 people in a week between 6 October and 13 October.32

23.The latest prison population projections were released in February 2023, before recent announcements to reduce pressures on the prison estate. At that time, it was projected that the prison population would rise to 94,400 prisoners by March 2025 and to between 93,100 and 106,300 by March 2027.33

24.The Government is building more prison places. The 2021 Prisons Strategy White Paper stated that 20,000 prison places would be built by the mid-2020s.34 As of 5 June 2023, 5,202 of these places had been delivered. Two new prisons (HMP Five Wells and HMP Fosse Way) have been opened.35 At the time of writing, two new prisons were still subject to planning appeals by the MoJ.36 The Government did not proceed with earlier plans to close old prisons in a poor condition.37

25.Since we launched our inquiry in May 2023, the pressure on the prison estate has come to wide public attention. In September, the high-profile alleged escape of inmate Daniel Khalife from HMP Wandsworth—the third most overcrowded prison in England and Wales—prompted much comment about the condition of prisons in England and Wales. In October, the Lord Chancellor announced a series of reforms in acknowledgement that the demands being placed on the prison system were unsustainable. These announcements included a commitment to ensure that a greater proportion of lower-level offenders are sentenced to “tough community sentences” which “are shown by the evidence to cut reoffending and hence to cut crime.”38

26.Custody is necessary in certain instances, even for offences that could attract a community order, particularly but not only for reasons of public safety. Damian Hinds MP said: “You need custodial options. When the same guy is in front of you for the 20th time, for the 200th offence, where do you go? You need those options, even for low-level offences.”39

27.Custody does not guarantee public safety. We received much evidence showing that short-term prison sentences are problematic. As HM Inspectorate of Prisons told us: “When prisoners spend a relatively short time at establishments and the turnover of arrivals and releases is high, our inspectors find that effective offender management can be challenging to achieve.” HM Inspectorate of Prisons explained: “Unless managed effectively, short-term custodial sentences can pose public protection risks” because spending a short amount of time in custody makes an offender more likely to reoffend.40 As the Lord Chancellor put it, “prisons should not ruin the redeemable”.41

28.In that context, we welcome the Government’s recent references to sentences served in the community. As Damian Hinds MP put it, “it is often preferable not to have somebody going into a short custodial sentence and, instead, to have something that is suitably punitive but also rehabilitative that can keep someone close to the job market, closer to home, and so on.”42

An effective option to reduce reoffending

29.A growing body of evidence is emerging that community sentences are more effective than short custodial sentences at reducing reoffending. Lord Justice William Davis, Chair of the Sentencing Council, the body in charge of producing sentencing guidelines, told us that “the strongest conclusion” from a recent review of the effectiveness of sentencing was that “shorter custodial sentences, particularly under 12 months, are less effective than community sentences at reducing reoffending”.43 In the following paragraphs, we review the evidence about the effectiveness of community sentences, including in comparison with short-term custodial sentences.

30.In terms of effectiveness, in the third quarter of 2021, the proven reoffending rate for adult offenders sentenced to a court order (community order or suspended custodial sentence) was nearly half that of adult offenders released from custodial sentences of less than 12 months (see Box 3).44 This led Gavin Dingwall to tell us that community sentences “are more effective than custodial sentences” if looking at “the raw reoffending data”.45

Box 3: Reoffending statistics

In the third quarter of 2021, the proven reoffending rate for adult offenders starting a court order (community order or suspended custodial sentence) was 30.6%. The proven reoffending rate for adult offenders released from custodial sentences of less than 12 months was 55.1%. Proven reoffending is defined as “any offence committed in a one-year follow-up period that leads to a court conviction, caution, reprimand or warning in the one-year follow-up or within a further six-month waiting period to allow the offence to be proven in court.” The one-year period starts when a community order is made or when the offender is released from custody. The Ministry of Justice warns that “users should exercise caution when comparing the effectiveness of different sentences because the presented rates do not control for differences in offender characteristics receiving those sentences”. In other words, there is no control group to isolate the effect of specific sentences. Differences in reoffending rates may be explained by the different types of sentences imposed but could also be explained by a range of other factors (e.g., those receiving a community order are likely to be less-serious offenders in the first instance), making it impossible to reach a conclusion as to the effectiveness of sentences. The Ministry of Justice undertook research to overcome that challenge, and found that, accounting for certain differences in offender characteristics, “the one year reoffending rate following short-term custodial sentences of less than 12 months was higher than if a court order had instead been given” by “4 percentage points”. Jenny George, Director, Justice value-for-money, National Audit Office, urged caution when considering this estimate. She said that the Ministry of Justice “could not match about 80% of the people, so it is likely that the population that we are looking at are more entrenched offenders than may be the average for a community sentence”.

Source: Ministry of Justice, Proven reoffending statistics quarterly bulletin, July to September 2021 (July 2021): https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1173906/PRSQ_Bulletin_July_to_September_2021.pdf [accessed 10 October 2023] and Q 109 (Jenny George).

31.“You are not necessarily comparing like with like”, was a point made by Gavin Dingwall. There is no control group. He explained that “courts will often be more likely to impose a custodial term if somebody has an entrenched pattern of offending, for example.”46 As Jenny George put it: “Overall, the people who go towards a community sentence are likely to be not exactly the same population of people as those who are sentenced to short custodial sentences”.47

32.There have been attempts to overcome that challenge. Where research has attempted to match the characteristics of individuals subject to the different types of sentences, Gavin Dingwall told us that it has “found that there is still a notable difference in reoffending rates between them.”48 The Ministry of Justice conducted such a “matching analysis study”, Jenny George told us, which “took a whole load of characteristics of people and then took somebody who had a community sentence with the same characteristics as somebody who went to prison, and tried to look at the reoffending rate”. She cautioned that “there are always some caveats and limitation” and, in this instance, the study is comparing people serving short custodial sentences with “more entrenched offenders than may be the average for a community sentence”. She explained that the Ministry of Justice “did that work in 2015 and again in 2019, and both times it found that there was a slightly lower rate of reoffending for those who had a community sentence”.49 As a group of academics told us, “at best, short sentences appear to affect reoffending rates similarly to community sentences and other disposals” while “at worst, short sentences may exacerbate reoffending in some circumstances—particularly for young offenders.”50

33.One reason why community sentences are more effective than short custodial sentences at reducing reoffending is that they “allow people to retain contact with the support networks and services which can help to address the factors contributing to their offending.”51 As the Prison Reform Trust put it: “Unlike imprisonment, they allow for maintenance of family ties, jobs, and childcare responsibilities—all factors which reduce the risk of reoffending.”52 As the Lord Chancellor put it:

“It is clear that all too often the circumstances that lead to an initial offence are exacerbated by a short stint in prison, with offenders losing their homes, breaking contact with key support networks and, crucially, meeting others inside prison who steer them in the wrong direction.”53

Justin Russell commented that “There is an irony that HMPPS is now willing to pay for three months’ accommodation for people coming out of prison” where “What you need is to pay for the accommodation before they have had to go into prison in the first place”.54 He explained that only five regions of the Probation Service can procure accommodation for prison leavers in that way, and that “We are finding lower recall rates in the areas where that is happening”.55

Good value for money

34.Community sentences being more effective than short custodial sentences at reducing reoffending, we should be prepared to fund them. Community sentences, however, also happen to be generally less expensive to deliver than short prison sentences—though the cost is nevertheless significant.

35.The National Audit Office told us that the available data makes it “difficult to give a current estimate on the cost of community sentences”, although witnesses mentioned costs ranging from £2,500 to £18,000, depending on the intensity of the intervention.56 By comparison, we heard that “custody is staggeringly expensive”.57 The National Audit Office told us that the average monthly cost of retaining an individual in custody was estimated at £4,000.58 Dr Juste Abramovaite, Research Fellow, University of Birmingham, told us:

“Prison is so expensive that sending someone to prison and then giving them rehabilitation services after prison will always be more expensive than giving someone interventions for substance misuse or mental health, or addressing housing.”59

36.This raises the question of whether savings would be made if community orders were used more frequently instead of short custodial sentences. The National Audit Office told us that it “may not result in immediate savings” for the Ministry of Justice because “there are many costs associated with running the prison estate such as staff salaries and the cost of its estate, which would require substantial changes in the prison population before they can be adjusted”.60 Jenny George explained that the costs of prison are “fixed or semi fixed”, because “if you save by one person not going to prison, you do not save one prison officer or one prison wing”.61 Damian Hinds MP also made the point that “if the short custodial sentence cohort were to be managed in the community instead, the intensity of the CO and requirements given may differ from that of the current CO cohort”, affecting the average cost of community sentences.62

37.Savings may however be made thanks to a reduction in reoffending that would result from community sentences being used more widely.63 The Ministry of Justice estimated that the total cost of reoffending by people convicted between January and December 2016 was £18.1 billion, considering it an underestimate.64 Some of these costs could be saved if reoffending was to decrease—for instance, Paul Doran, formerly of the Probation Board of Northern Ireland (PBNI), told us that “an independent economic appraisal” of the Northern Ireland Enhanced Combination Order (ECO) had concluded that if ECOs were to be rolled out across Northern Ireland, this would result in an annual net benefit of between £5.7 million and £8.3 million thanks to the corresponding reduction in reoffending.65

38.Witnesses also mentioned the intergenerational effects of incarceration—if fewer people are held in custody, it is likely to reduce reoffending in the long term. Dr Abramovaite explained: “Young people and children whose parents are in prison are much more likely to end up in the criminal justice system when they become young adults”, adding that “they have poorer life outcomes in school attainment and performance and worse mental health.”66 She specified that “65% of the children of prisoners end up in the criminal justice system or prison”, though she was “not aware of any studies or follow-ups of children whose parents get a community sentence.”67

Intensive Supervision Courts

39.Community sentences are a key tool of problem-solving courts, designed to promote community-based solutions to offending behaviour. Dozens of such courts are in operation across England and Wales. The latest three, known as ‘intensive supervision courts’, have been piloted since June 2023.68 Chief Probation Officer Kim Thornden-Edwards told us that “two are on substance misuse in Teesside and Liverpool, and one is on women in Birmingham.” She explained that “their model has progress reviews built in, so there is a single dedicated judge who oversees the progress of the case with routine reviews”: offenders spend their sentences in the community, and their progress is regularly reviewed by courts.69

40.Phil Bowen, Director at the Centre for Justice Innovation, argued that problem-solving courts, such as these ‘intensive supervision courts’, “hold a key to convincing sentencers that community sentences are robust, and it is a way of showing the public that these people are being held to account on a regular basis by a court.”70

41.Damian Hinds MP emphasised that intensive supervision courts are “not a soft option”.71 Similar problem-solving courts exist in various settings, and we heard evidence about such approaches in the Greater Manchester Combined Authority area, Northern Ireland, and New York.72

42.While we were conducting our inquiry, prisons reached their operational capacity. The Government is building new prisons, originally driven by the need to replace old prisons whose condition is extremely poor and which incur considerable running costs. The focus now is on expanding the number of prison places rather than replacing old prisons.

43.Custody is sometimes necessary, but it is expensive and fuels reoffending. Community orders are a sound alternative in many cases. They can take various forms, giving judges and magistrates the ability to tailor sentences to individual circumstances. They are demanding on the offender and help them stop committing crime, thereby protecting the public. Breach mechanisms mean that offenders are being held to account.

44.Being homeless makes it difficult to comply with the requirements of a community order. For those sent to prison, perhaps after the breach of a community order, custody can make their situation worse. They are likely to lose their accommodation—having stable housing is crucial to being in employment, and to access support networks. Without these, it is more likely that an offender will reoffend. Community sentences do not cut offenders from their support network or employment, which may enable maintaining suitable accommodation.

45.The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities should recognise the importance of housing to the success of community orders. It should be careful not to undermine the efforts of the Ministry of Justice to rehabilitate people serving community orders.

46.Increasing the use of community orders is likely to result in a decline of reoffending, which would result in long-term savings. While the most intensive types of community orders are expensive to deliver, they typically cost less than custody.

47.We welcome problem-solving courts, including specialised pilot ‘intensive supervision courts’. By taking a holistic approach and tailoring sentences to individual circumstances, and by holding offenders accountable for their progress through regular court hearings, we believe that problem-solving approaches can be effective solutions against repeat offending.

An underused measure

Decline in the use of community orders

48.The use of community orders (sometimes abbreviated as ‘COs’) has been declining, both in absolute terms and as a proportion of all sentences, since they were introduced in their current form in 2005 (see Figures 1 and 2). The Ministry of Justice set out the figures for us:

“In 2005, 143,000 CO sentences were imposed compared to 60,500 in 2022. Although the volumes of all sentences imposed have reduced over that period, there has been a greater fall in COs than in sentences overall—a 58% reduction for COs compared with a 29% reduction for sentences overall. COs accounted for 6% of sentences given to adults in 2022 compared to 10% in 2005.”73

49.The National Audit Office detailed that the number of offenders starting supervision with the Probation Service under a community sentence fell by 44% (from 106,073 to 59,800) between 2012 and 2022, reflecting the decline in imposition of community orders over the same period.74 The Probation Board of Northern Ireland noticed similar trends in the use of the Community Service Orders.75

Figure 1: Number of community orders issued every year

Source: Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal justice system statistics quarterly: September 2022—Overview Table Q5.3’ (16 February 2023): https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-justice-statistics-quarterly-september-2022 [accessed 10 October 2023]

50.The Ministry of Justice told us that “it is likely that various factors have contributed to this reduction in the number of COs imposed”. They mentioned “changes to sentence practice”, such as “an increased use of suspended sentences for Indictable/Triable Either Way offences”.76 They suggested the following other explanations:

• “Changes in the number of cases being dealt with at court.
• Changes in the offence group mix being dealt with at court.
• Impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
• Changes to Legislation.”77

51.The Probation Institute added another potential cause, arguing that “the decline in use of community penalties can be partially explained by ‘prisoncentricity’ as a dominant theme in political discourse”, defining “prisoncentricity” as “the dominance of thinking that imprisonment is the only real penalty.”78

52.The National Audit Office said that “part of this decline is because the total number of people sentenced over the period has declined by 14%”, but noted that “the proportion of all offenders given community sentences has decreased significantly.”79 By comparison, the proportion of offenders given immediate custodial sentences has declined slowly (see Figure 2).

53.Lord Justice William Davis, Chair of the Sentencing Council, also told us about a change in sentencing practice. He explained that “between about 1991 and 2005, you could get a suspended sentence only if there were exceptional circumstances relating to either the offence or the offender”, such that “suspended sentences were rare.” The entry into force, in 2005, of the relevant provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 meant “there was a dramatic increase in suspended sentences and a corresponding fall in community orders.”80 Damian Hinds MP also said:

“I think it makes sense to put together community orders and suspended sentence orders, which share some of the same characteristics. If you do that, the decline in the number is not so great. Between 2005 and 2022, the decline was around 33%. That has to be seen in the context of sentences overall, which was down by about 29%.”81

Figure 2: Sentences passed

Source: Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal justice system statistics quarterly: September 2022—Overview Table Q5.3’: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-justice-statistics-quarterly-september-2022 [accessed 10 October 2023]

54.Damian Hinds MP argued that the apparent decline was the result of a change in the crime mix, with those offences which frequently attract a community sentence being less frequently committed, but nevertheless being penalised by a community sentence: “if you were to measure the number of community orders and suspended sentences per 100 domestic burglaries, say, you would not see a decline”.82 The National Audit Office, however, told us that “data do not indicate that changes in the frequency of different offences explains the decline in community sentences”. They explained that: “For each type of offence, the proportion of sentences issued that were community sentences has decreased, with the exception of violence against the person, for which there was a small increase of one percentage point.”83

55.Women in Prison also said that legislation might have had an impact. They claimed that “the introduction of the offence ‘Assault on Emergency Worker’ in 2018 is sweeping a significant number [of] women … into the justice system”, and noted that this offence was most commonly attracting a community order (43% of cases), ahead of suspended custodial sentences (12%) and immediate custody (9%).84

56.Witnesses suggested other explanations for the decline in the imposition of community orders mostly related to the relationship between sentencers and the Probation Service. The Prison Reform Trust pointed in the direction of Pre-Sentence Reports (PSRs), which sentencers can request from the Probation Service: “courts are over 10 times more likely to impose a community sentence if a pre-sentence report (PSR) is conducted” but standard PSRs “have almost entirely been phased out” in recent years (see Box 9, after paragraph 244).85 Phil Bowen also mentioned “a deterioration in the relationship between sentencers and Probation” (see section on “a matter of confidence”, paragraphs 57–69) as a potential explanation. The National Audit Office listed the “quality and availability of information about offenders available to sentencers”, “sentencers’ confidence in community sentences due to probation arrangements”, and “awareness and availability of options for managing offenders in the community.”86

A matter of confidence

57.We heard that the decline in the use of community sentences may also be related to sentencers having, at some point, lost trust in them or how they used to be enforced. Lord Justice William Davis, Chair of the Sentencing Council, told us that “there is considerable anecdotal evidence” of “judges and magistrates losing confidence in community sentences. He elaborated:

“We as the Council are constantly talking to judges and magistrates about different guidelines and aspects of sentencing as part of our evaluation process. In the course of those conversations from 2015 to 2017 it was a theme that judges and magistrates felt— ‘We simply do not think that the orders we are imposing will be enforced’.”87

58.Dr Cracknell drew a link with the Transforming Rehabilitation reforms (see Box 4), through which the management of least-serious offenders was outsourced to private organisations, known as “Community Rehabilitation Companies” (CRCs), between 2014 and 2021. He explained that “these reforms have damaged the trust that sentencers have” in the Probation Service’s “ability to deliver effective community sentences.”88

Box 4: The ‘Transforming Rehabilitation’ reforms

“Transforming Rehabilitation was a major structural reform programme introduced shortly after Chris Grayling MP became Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice in 2012. The programme implemented in 2014–15 introduced fundamental changes to how probation was organised and delivered. The primary change was the division of service delivery into two parts: The National Probation Service (NPS)—responsible for manging offenders who posed the highest risk of harm to the public and who had committed the most serious offences. The NPS was organised into seven geographic areas. Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs)—run by a mix of providers from private, statutory and voluntary sectors, contracted to deliver community sentences for medium and low-risk offenders, and paid, in part, for results achieved in reducing reoffending. In 2014, private companies (including Sodexo, Interserve, and MTC Novo) won bids to provide services in 21 CRC areas.”89 In June 2020, CRC contracts were terminated and the Probation Service unified.90 The House of Commons Justice Select Committee responded: “We welcome the decision to unify the Probation Service once more. We warn, however, that, after the disruption of the past seven years, changes proposed and begun to the probation system must be fully thought through, properly funded and expected to remain in place for a period of decades rather than months or a few years.”91

59.Tom Franklin, Chief Executive of the Magistrates’ Association, confirmed that “the changes in the Probation Service over the last decade have certainly not helped at all” because “there is a feeling that a lot of the expertise in the Probation Service was lost as a result”, such that “the level of confidence has taken a knock over the last few years.” Tom Franklin, however, told us that community sentences are now “as popular as ever” among magistrates.92 Lord Justice William Davis agreed that the lack of confidence was “historical and does not apply any more.”93

60.Part of the issue was that CRCs “were not allowed to engage directly with the courts” according to the National Audit Office.94 As the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC) put it, “there was dissatisfaction about the inability of sentencers to direct the shape of the community order”.95 An inspection by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation (HMIP) found that, “in the final months” of the Transforming Rehabilitation years, magistrates “liked the idea of drug rehabilitation requirements, but felt that they were being poorly delivered” because “they did not have confidence in CRCs to meet the needs of people on probation who had a drug problem”.96

61.We heard that “there has been a big push in the service to improve liaison, which is paying off”.97 The Minister for Prisons and Probation told us about the Judicial Engagement Charter, which “sets out how judges are kept informed of the availability of interventions”.98 Chris Jennings, HMPPS’s Executive Director for Wales who led the introduction of the Judicial Engagement Charter, explained its purpose:

“It was a promise of what we would do to engage with the judiciary to make sure that they felt we were fulfilling our obligations and giving them the information they need. We set out a series of commitments as part of that charter, to make sure that at local, regional and national level we have proper engagement structures where we can listen to the concerns of magistrates and provide them with any information that they need to have confidence in our system.”99

62.A tangible outcome was the creation of “a national forum” chaired by the Chief Probation Officer and of local “liaison committees”.100 Damian Hinds MP also told us about “online region-by-region summaries of the different interventions provided by probation and what they involve” which are “primarily aimed at members of the judiciary”.101 Kim Thornden-Edwards, the current Chief Probation Officer, told us that she was “satisfied” that local probation teams “have some really connected, vibrant arrangements with their local sentencers, both in quarterly meetings where the higher level progress and performance is reported, and in newsletters and ad hoc events.”102 Tom Franklin, on behalf of the Magistrates’ Association, echoed this position: he told us that “magistrates see the relationship between themselves and the Probation Officers as entirely symbiotic” and that there is a “high degree of confidence” among them.103

63.Against this “generally positive picture”, we heard that sentencers “would like more information on the outcomes of the people they sentence”.104 As Chris Jennings explained, “in usual circumstances the only time sentencers note progress of an order is usually when it is in breach”, meaning that the offender has been recalled before the Court for non-compliance with the terms of their sentence.105 The then Chief Inspector of Probation, Justin Russell, told us that “it would seem like a good idea to build in some sort of feedback mechanism”.106 Lord Justice William Davis remembered a time when “judges would ask for a short progress report from the supervising officer”, while acknowledging that probation staff would not have capacity to produce them systematically (see paragraphs 239–259).107

64.The public, too, is questioning the use and enforcement of community sentences. Gavin Dingwall told us that, “too often, there is a public perception that anything other than a custodial sentence is not an adequate response to an offence” and that, “often this is borne out of ignorance of different types of sentencing.”108 The House of Commons Justice Select Committee recently reported on these issues, finding that a significant proportion of the public has little knowledge of sentencing policy.109 The Ministry of Justice cited the work of the Sentencing Council on the public understanding of sentencing:

“These reports indicate that most respondents were of the view that COs may be most appropriate for less serious crimes, such as minor theft. Some however felt that they were too ‘soft’ to be effective.”110

65.Revolving Doors told us that polling commissioned by them in 2022 “found that the majority of the public (65%) think that the reason why most people commit non-violent, low-level crimes is due to poverty, mental health issues, and problems with drugs and alcohol.” They went on to say that “the majority (58%) also believe that alternatives to prison should be found in these cases”.111 The National Association of Probation Officers told us: “Greater understanding of the guidelines but also what a community sentence involves would enable the public and victims to not only understand why a sentence was handed down but may go some way to offering reassurances.”112

66.Despite all the advantages of community orders, their use has been declining in recent years. Various explanations were brought forward. The negative impact of the Transforming Rehabilitation reforms persists—sentencers lost confidence in the ability of Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs, to whom the management of low-risk offenders was outsourced) to enforce community orders. Trust in community sentences is progressively being restored after the Probation Service unified in 2021, putting an end to the Transforming Rehabilitation reforms.

67.Community orders should be used more frequently. While it is the responsibility of the independent Judiciary to decide what sentence is appropriate in each case brought before Courts, it is the role of the Government to make sentences available to the Judiciary.

68.The Government should invest in the services that underpin community orders to satisfy sentencers of their efficiency and availability. The emphasis should be put on intensive treatment, the effectiveness of which is established.

69.Pre-Sentence Reports produced by the Probation Service should include relevant information about the content, effectiveness, and availability of community sentences in the local area (see further conclusions and recommendations on Pre-Sentence Reports starting at paragraph 255 in Chapter 5). Such information should be updated regularly to keep sentencers informed.

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