BIND OVERS// A REMINDER OF TIMES PAST// PART 2

A Bind Over is neither a conviction nor a punishment. It is a preventative measure whereby a person enters into a recognisance before the court (gives a promise) to engage in good behaviour and to keep the peace for a period not exceeding three years. The recognisance is a promise to pay a specified sum of money if the recognisance is breached.  On June 13th I told of my own experience prior to appointment of witnessing a bench exercising its power to threaten a plaintiff to being bound over.  In my opinion this was in retrospect a bench led by an arrogant chairman exceeding its powers. Ever since, the words "bind over" have held an interest for me.  I offer again the CPS guidance on that disposal.  For an apparently simple disposal the underlying conditions prior to and subsequent to its activation are considerable but its use is diminishing annually as the statistics below testify. 

I find this information rather strange.  The obvious question is why.  The situations where, according to the CPS guidance, such a disposal is lawful are as frequent now as in past years and it`s not as if it is costly in financial and professional terms for a bind over to be made as  no input from probation service is necessary nor legal representation for the miscreant.  The next point of interest is that there is no public availability of the effectiveness of the order insofar as its deterrent effect against future criminality.  Therefore nobody knows how many of the above numbered offenders breached their bind overs.  When a sentence appears to be ineffective or rarely used some bright spark in parliament seeking a few minutes in the headlines or a press release from Petty France lays the foundation to repeal such legislation.  Sentencing Guidelines on making bind over orders are quite pithy. My explanation for the virtual disappearance of the sentence is quite simple.  It doesn`t respond easily to a "computer says no" or algorithmic solution.  It is predicated on future risk rather like bail decisions and such decisions demand discussion.  It is a situation for a bench where the justices have to actually think for themselves and not be herded like a flock of sheep in the direction to which the legal advisor is pointing.  These considerations have, over the last two decades, been gradually and silently removed from magistrates` judicial discretion.  Ask any magistrate about binding over and the chances are that s/he will display total ignorance of the disposal. After all with just 318 such decisions in 2022 and 150 courts offering so called local justice each court will have had but two such outcomes the whole year and like local as to justice is a historic anomaly bind overs as to sentencing I`m sure will follow that example.