What Is The Point Of Concurrent Sentencing And Should We End It?

[Rainbowdust]

Why do we have this concurrent sentencing where a career criminal should get his or hers comeuppance and a very very long sentence but instead have these sentences as concurrent usually at the delight from the criminal in the dock and the dismay at the victims in the courts.

Surely if you do the crime you must do the time and that should mean one sentence after another keeping these criminals where they belong and also deterring would be criminals who are free from offending?

What are your thoughts regarding concurrent sentencing?

[grasscarp]

Probably needed to keep the prison population down. The longer people are left inside the more it costs us to put them up.

[Rainbowdust]

Grasscarp then we need to remove every luxury available that cost's the prison service in order to cut costs. Food can be replaced with gruel or the same stuff we pay to give 3rd world countries which barely keeps them alive and stop visits, association time, letters etc.. which costs more due to the fact of having extra staff around.

It really boils my blood to think someone that has committed a few crimes which should warrant a large sentence get let off with a slap on the wrist and this is apparent when you see them smirking in the dock or laughing and waving at family member and friends where previously before sentence was passed they're usually looking hot, sweaty and nervous.

[grasscarp]

There are a lot of issues. Years ago I used to visit my nephew who was in prison. He was the only white face I saw in there.

[jake-the-peg]

It's a difficult one with a number of aspects but it sounds as if you have a concept that there is a direct proportionality between number of offences and harm.

An example - If a burglar gets 2 years for breaking into a house and admits another 10 cases should he get 20 years?

A single rape conviction might attract 8 years

Is breaking into 10 houses twice as bad as committing rape?

The other way of looking at it is that the criminal activity attracts the majority of the punishment in a particular case.

A similar issue is offences 'taken into consideration' where an offender can ask for additional offentences admitted in the trial to be included.

For the offender he is able to make a fresh start knowing he won't be prosecuted seperately and although the sentence will be longer it will be shorter than if each were seperately prosecuted

For the state, cases are cleared that might otherwise never come to court and much cheaper than if they had.



I would also caution about relying on the notion of deterrance

Deterance simply doesn't work (much)

People don't think they will be caught, they act under the influence of drugs or drink or while enraged or on the spur of the moment.

Would you go around beating people up if you thought you could get away with it? I doubt it - would you steal if you had a guarantee you'd not get caught?

Fear of a heavy sentence doesn't keep you on the straight and narrow why should it work for others?

[EDDIE51]

Over 75% of people who are sentenced to prison , even for a few weeks, never work again. Is this the way forward ? Habitual criminals see jail as 'part of the job' they do not worry about 'going inside' it does not effect reoffending they just don't worry about it.

[FredPuli43]

Judges have always considered what the total sentence should be for the offences, taken as a whole, and sentenced to that amount. That may be because there is one very serious offence and with it a comparatively trivial one committed in the course of it; a man might be charged with going equipped for burglary but also committing burglary with the equipment. In practice, it has been usual not to bother with the minor charge once the man has pleaded guilty to the major one, but to 'leave it on the file' .

Sometimes it's several offences of a like kind; the right sentence might be 4 years in all, but expressed as 4 years concurrent, or 2 plus 2, with others concurrent and so on.

[Old_Geezer]

The alternative means that before long a criminal has little to lose by getting involved in more serious crime, they looking at a life sentence anyway. Plus no one will confess to other things when caught so many things don't get cleared up that would otherwise.

I can see the viewpoint that they are getting away with loads of lesser crimes, but there seems little point in adding for each save vengeance. They aren't going to be any more deterred next time. Merely institutionalised.

The idea is that they get caught, learn it's not a good idea, and turn over a new leaf. If they commit umpteen crimes before getting caught then they didn't get their early experience to make them turn away from crime.

It's the reoffending one needs to prevent, not hitting them harder because you failed to catch them earlier.

[FredPuli43]

And, incidentally and as suggested, the real preventative, deterrent, element for criminals, is the certainty of being caught. When there's little chance of being caught they'll commit the crime. If they are unlucky and are caught, the sentence does not stop them; if it's one in a million or one in a hundred thousand, being hung, drawn and quartered won't stop them. That explains the. almost certainly true, story of pickpockets working the crowds who have gathered to watch a pickpocket being hanged; the circumstances were made for pickpockets. Lots of people, in a crush, pushing forward, not minding their pockets or purses, a dip can strike, get the goods to an accomplice and away, and then move on to the next victim, with virtually no chance of being caught and being convicted and hanged himself.

[New Judge]

There are two aspects of imprisonment becoming increasingly overlooked:

Firstly, that of punishment. Sentences invariably contain an element of punishment (which in my view is the most important). Very nice if a bit of rehabilitation can be provided, but punishment should be the main element, certainly where an offence is serious enough for imprisonment. So if a burglar commits 10 offences and is sentenced to 2 years for each to be served concurrently he is effectively getting no punishment for nine of them. It’s simple to understand. If he committed one, served his two years (well in reality less than twelve months), came out, committed another, served two years, and so on, he would be getting punished for each one. The fact that he has committed ten offences before being caught and sentenced is no reason to provide a “discount for bulk”.

Then there is the “prevention of crime” element. Whatever else can be said about prison, whilst a miscreant is inside the rest of us have a break from his activities.

By the way, Eddie, the reason many people who serve prison sentences “never work again” is because a large majority of them have never worked in the first placel. Additionally, the reason why the rate of recidivism is so high in the UK is not because of harsh sentences. (In fact, compared to other similar jurisdictions the likelihood of going to prison for like offences in the UK is quite low. I have often provided figures in response to other questions to support this). No, the reason for a high rate of reoffending amongst those sent to prison is because by the time they get there most of them are already habitual criminals, having failed to respond to earlier interventions. It’s what they do and in many cases it's what they will always do. The job of the judicial system is to stop them doing it for as long as possible. And it's failing - badly.

[jim360]

Besides which, longer sentences give us more time to rehabilitate prisoners anyway.

[Orderlimit]

Totally agree Mr NJ, well said.

[hc4361]

Grasscarp, your point is?

[hc4361]

I would very much like to see a new type of prison for first offenders of crimes that would otherwise be dealt with by community service etc.
Single cell, no visits, no association, no tv, no radio. Very basic food that fits the nutritional requirements.
Locked up in the cell 24/7 for one month. Short, sharp shock.

[New Judge]

Can't be done, hc. Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights:

"No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."

Deliberately very vague. Vague enough for a liberal minded judge to interpret your plans as "inhuman or degrading treatment".

Next !!!!

[hc4361]

I don't really see how being supplied with a bed, heating, toilet and washing facilities, meals, protected from abuse by staff or inmates can be inhumane or degrading but I get your point.

[jake-the-peg]

NJ - you have rather neatly avoided answering the question implied in my response

Is it appropriate to sentence a man who burgles 10 houses to incarceration twice as long as a rapist?

Do you think that is proportionate between the two crimes?

[New Judge]

Yes I do think it is appropriate, jake.

The way he would avoid a longer sentence is if he managed to commit all the ten burglaries before being caught, prosecuted and sentenced for any of them. Quite an achievement on his part, but hardly one that qualifies for a bulk discount. As I said, had he committed each burglary and then served a sentence for each individual crime before committing the next one he would serve, effectively, consecutive sentences. And so he should if he is not apprehended between crimes.

As things stand, once on a "spree" there is very little incentive for him to desist. His sentence for one offfence will be very little different to if he commits ten, twenty or a hundred and he will simply continue until apprehended - a ludicrous state of affairs.

Your comparison between a sentence for ten burglaries and one rape is inappropriate. You should compare the sentences for ten burglaries and ten rapes.

[FredPuli43]

NJ, what was the appropriate sentence for a man I knew of who pleaded to two standard domestic burglaries and asked for 378 like offences to be taken into consideration?

[New Judge]

The whole issue of TICs troubles me enormously, Fred, especially when you consider that the additional offences are not considered separately but are merely considered an aggravating feature.

There comes a point when standard cumulative consecutive sentences are no longer appropriate. Your example of 380 offences is clearly one of them. Given that one offence would probably attract perhaps 12 months it is clearly ridiculous to consider a sentence in excess of 300 years. However, neither is a sentence of 18 months for each offence to run concurrently appropriate. This case clearly involves a prolific burglar who has no respect for anybody else or their property. Bearing in mind the maximum sentence for one offence is 14 years I would suggest a lengthy sentence perhaps in the region of fifteen to twenty years. The “totality” of his offences is enormous and this really is a case where public protection is as paramount as punishment. There are three hundred-odd victims and a couple of weeks’ custody for each offence is fairly light but in reality I doubt he got more than about three years.

[FredPuli43]

Of course NJ 378 t i cs did not mean he'd done 378 crimes. We all knew that the police improved their clear up rate by inviting a regular villain to sign for as many offences as he could, always on the basis that that wouldn't increase the sentence. He'd certainly done some but 378 wasn't really possible in the time and area available to him. He didn't care, and it made the police happy. And, true to those ideals, he was weighed off as a a persitent offender who'd done about, say, 15 over a period.