Protecting victims
This is the fifth in a series of posts looking into the detail of the Independent Sentencing Review whose main recommendations I summarised here. Today’s post looks at providing support to victims. Mr Gauke is explicit that the Review has been mindful of the needs of victims throughout the development of all its recommendations and we have already seen that the he has called for the Government to:
“Amend the statutory purposes of sentencing to emphasise the importance of protecting victims and reducing crime.”
Transparency
The recommendations in the Victims’ Chapter (5) of the Review, focus on promoting greater clarity and support for victims as they navigate the justice system. Mr Gauke also makes it clear that the Review also intends that its package of recommendations as a whole will improve transparency for victims. The Victims’ Commissioner and many victim support organisations made it clear in their submissions to the Review that many victims felt blindsided by the numerous early release schemes put in place over the last two years.
Mr Gauke says he hopes that the Review’s recommendations to standardise the progression of offenders through their custodial sentences ends the need for further emergency releases and therefore provides more certainty for victims. In addition to this focus on transparency, the Review focuses many of its recommendations on the issue of violence against women and girls (VAWG).
I summarise the main recommendations below.
- Public awareness campaign – the Review calls for a campaign (supplemented by specific information for victims of crime) on how the sentencing framework works, and particularly how long perpetrators will serve in prison and when they will be released.
- Improve the effective provision of information and support – the Review (quite rightly) describes current services for victims as fragmented and disjointed and calls for a more joined up approach across the different stages of the justice process, better transparency around sentencing and appeal rights; and rolling out wider trauma-informed support training for its staff.
- Continue the provision of free copies of judge’s sentencing remarks to victims of Rape and Serious Sexual Offences (this is currently a pilot).
- Improve identification of perpetrators of domestic abuse at sentencing to ensure the right interventions are in place to manage offenders. The Review recommends that the Government introduces a statutory requirement for courts to record judicial findings of domestic abuse in cases, to enable better identification and monitoring of perpetrators by the Police and Probation Services – this recommendation is, of course, dependent on those services having sufficient resources.
- Expand the provision of Specialist Domestic Abuse Courts (SDACs). The Review also recommends SDACs should accommodate Independent Domestic Violence Advisors (IDVAs)who provide critical support to victims throughout their engagement with the criminal justice system and whose presence in court can significantly improve the victim’s experience.
- Improve training for criminal justice practitioners and the judiciary on VAWG offences, the risks presented by offenders, and the full range of interventions available. The Review also calls for trauma-informed training. The Review is careful to say that “tagging should enhance, rather than replace, the proper enforcement of these orders”.
- Equip the Probation Service with sufficient resources to manage perpetrators of VAWG, including for electronic monitoring.
- Compensation for victims of coercive and controlling behaviour – there is no detailed recommendation here but a recognition that financial compensation orders are rarely made despite the often devastating impact on victims of these offences.
The next post in this series will be of particular interest to many readers and focuses on Chapter Six of the Review which sets out proposed targeted approaches to different groups of offenders including prolific offenders, women, older offenders, foreign national offenders, sex offenders and drug and alcohol offenders.
