THE RICH WOT GETS THE PLEASURE................

Everyone is equal before the law. Sentencing guidelines introduced 2010. Suspended sentences were first introduced in England and Wales by the Criminal Justice Act 1967 but their availability to courts was greatly restricted by the Criminal Justice Act 1991 which required the court to exercise its power to suspend a sentence only where it could be justified by the "exceptional circumstances".  The Criminal Justice Act 2000 saw the introduction of a new Suspended Sentence Order (SSO) overturning the previous restrictions.  All those proceeding statements are  (supposedly) in operation today.  That might be the theory but the practice has long since deviated from the ideals behind the original planners` intentions. Nowhere have those intentions been more abused or fallen into place depending on one`s political and/or social attitudes than in the used of "custody suspended".  I use the term advisedly because that was the manner in which the sentence was devised.  The custody level set by the appropriate guidelines for the offence must have had to be breached and then and only then should the determination be made if  the interests of justice justice could be served by suspending that custodial period.  The sanction provided in law is that breach of the accompanying community service order would allow the custodial sentence to be activated.  In 2019 just under 40,000 suspended sentence orders were made.  In the eyes of many of the public such orders are regarded as a get out of jail free card. In September 2021 a very interesting examination of this subject was published.  My point today is that similar to the explosion in exceptional hardship orders being allowed by magistrates when a driver faces disqualification the SSO has become a tool that the Ministry of Justice hoped and hopes will stabilise or reduce the number of low level offenders in jail.  Clearly there are occasions where its use fulfils that ideal but its almost indiscriminate effect is to provide inequality before the law. I have posted here more than once as to why for example a doctor with 12 penalty points avoids a driving ban and a carpenter doesn`t.  Prior to the introduction of Sentencing Guidelines magistrates were rigorously instructed in structural decision making when deciding sentence.  It allowed free thinking by the bench members to be justified by reason and logic and took offenders` personal and other circumstances into account. If that exercise concluded in a custodial period being appropriate every effort was made to determine whether or not suspension was a suitable option.  The statistics seem to indicate that that ladder of progression has in many cases been overlooked. 

Recently at Workington magistrates court a previous offender was convicted of a  ""serious" public order offence involving threatening behaviour."  By all accounts in the short newspaper report he escaped immediate custody because the court believed his mitigation that his employees` livelihoods would be at risk if he were incarcerated.  Consider the situation if it were one of those employees in the dock under similar circumstances.  We are entitled to assume that s/he would have been subject to immediate imprisonment. Where is equality before the law in this example and countless others of similar nature? The old adage slightly modified perhaps that it`s the rich wot gets the pleasure and the poor wot gets the blame is still around in 2022 England.