Comprehensive reforms needed
A citizens’ panel made up of a representative sample of 15 members of the public has concluded that the current sentencing system in England and Wales is “complex, bureaucratic, and unfit for the pressing needs of society,” according to a report released yesterday (7 April 2025).
The panel was commissioned by the Prison Reform Trust and set up, facilitated and reported on by the specialist social research agency Hopkins Van Mil (HVM).
The panel was timed to provide insight for the government’s independent review of sentencing, chaired by former justice secretary David Gauke, whose final report is expected to the published next month.
Although a public dialogue and various polls and surveys have been undertaken on public awareness of sentencing, this is the first deliberative exercise to explore public attitudes on effective sentencing in England and Wales.
The Citizens’ Panel
This Citizens’ Panel was an adapted form of a Citizens’ Jury designed to address the gap between snapshot views of public opinion captured through polling and surveys, and public judgment which citizens have come to after engaging with a subject and hearing an overall balance of expert evidence over several workshop sessions.
Citizens’ Panels create recommendations to inform the work of decision-makers and are particularly valuable when the policy area involves complex issues, uncertainties, or conflicting beliefs and values and where an evaluation of the trade-offs between differing policy options is required.
In this case, the panel, composed of 15 members representing a diverse cross-section of the population, engaged in 11.5 hours of deliberation over a 10-day period from January 30 to February 8, 2025. Participants heard from seven expert witnesses and received extensive information on current sentencing guidelines and practices.
Findings
The findings reveal a strong public desire for “a system which is fair to everyone in society and prioritises keeping people safe whilst achieving better outcomes from reform and rehabilitation,”. The citizens’ panel identified several critical issues with the current sentencing system:
- Low public awareness leading to misunderstandings that can unduly influence policy decisions.
- Systemic unfairness that disproportionately affects minoritised ethnic groups, women, and working-class individuals.
- Ineffective rehabilitation programmes that fail to achieve desired outcomes.
- Financial inefficiency of the current system, particularly regarding prison costs during a cost-of-living crisis.
Recommendations
The panel proposed four main routes to developing a more effective sentencing system:
- Improving trust and accountability to build a fairer system that is understood by wider society.
- Modernising the system through better use of technology, data, and a simplified sentencing framework and guidelines.
- Restricting custodial sentences to the most serious crimes and improving rehabilitation in prisons.
- Increasing community sentencing for less serious offenses with improved resources for the National Probation Service.
Ideas for reform put forward by panel members included the more visible use of community sentences for making reparation to victims and communities and the use of national service as an alternative to custody for some serious offences.
Conclusions
The report draws four main conclusions regarding the value of public engagement to sentencing reform:
- Public participants can provide valuable insights for policymaking when given accurate information and time to reflect.
- Ongoing public deliberation should be commissioned by government agencies and independent organisations.
- Public awareness of sentencing must be raised through increased communication and education.
- Public trust and confidence in sentencing can be improved by demonstrating long-term strategic thinking and effective use of resources.
Thanks to Andy Aitchison for kind permission to use the header image in this post. You can see Andy’s work here
