Public understanding

Most people would agree that public understanding is an important component of the legitimacy of the criminal justice system. This research report assesses public understanding of some key terms used in sentencing in England and Wales, including life imprisonment, suspended sentences and the victim surcharge.

It explores public understanding of these terms and tests whether alternatives are more easily understood. Perhaps most interestingly, the research also examines the effects of various terms on the perception of whether sentences are appropriate, too lenient or too severe. The report engages with a recent policy proposal to restructure determinate sentences of imprisonment to allow for earned release.

The report discusses findings from a survey using a nationally representative sample of 1,844 members of the public conducted by YouGov for the Sentencing Academy and the University of Galway in August 2025.

Key findings

The survey looked at a wide range of different terms used in sentencing. There were a number of cases where the current terminology was found to be confusing including:

• The term ‘victims services levy’ is better understood than the present term ‘victim surcharge’. 44% of people surveyed (wrongly) thought that “victim surcharges” were paid to the actual victim of a specific charge, rather than to support victims services in general.
• The term ‘victim impact statement’ is better understood than the present term ‘victim personal statement’. More than a third of people (incorrectly) thought that a “victim personal statement” was either a statement about their personal circumstances or a statement which helped police investigate a crime whereas its purpose is to inform the court about the effects of the crime on the victim.
• There was a lack of understanding of the consequences of breaching a community order.
• The term ‘suspended sentence of imprisonment subject to good behaviour’ was preferred to the current term ‘suspended sentence order’.

Transparency in making custodial sentences

Perhaps the most interesting section of the report focuses on the understanding of members of the public of terms used to describe different prison sentences.

As most readers will be aware, most offenders sent to prison will serve at least half of their determinate sentence of imprisonment in the community. The exact percentage varies depending upon the nature and seriousness of the offence of conviction. Until recently, most prisoners were released at the 50% point of the sentence. Under emergency legislation introduced last year (known as SDS 40), many prisoners are released at the 40% mark. The terms used to describe standard determinate prison sentences may provide a misleading impression of what these sentences actually entail. Indeed, the phrase standard determinate sentences is pretty opaque to anyone outside the CJS.

Survey respondents were given a choice of different  ways of describing a prison sentence and they expressed a strong preference for a transparent description which separated out the custodial and non-custodial components. That would mean, for example, that instead of passing a sentence of five years’ imprisonment, a judge would describing the sentence as one of two years in prison and three on licence.

Similarly, when passing a life sentence, most people thought the clearest way of expressing this was to include the minimum term that an offender would service. In the survey question shown below, 91% respondents chose the correction option.