Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent steps his Department has taken to ascertain the views of (a) victims of crime and (b) the general public on sentencing policy.

We are committed to ensuring victims of crime and the general public have confidence in the criminal justice system and there are a number of routes where the public’s confidence in the criminal justice system is regularly tested.

The Office for National Statistics has published data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales on confidence in the criminal justice system, for several years. This data can be viewed at:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/adhocs/008964dataonconfidenceinthecriminaljusticesystemyearsendingmarch2008tomarch2018crimesurveyforenglandandwales

with additional information here:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/adhocs/010292confidenceinthecriminaljusticesystemyearsendingmarch2008tomarch2018crimesurveyforenglandandwales/finaltable.xls

and separately in tables S13 and S27 here:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/datasets/crimeinenglandandwalesannualsupplementarytables

The independent Sentencing Council also has a statutory duty to have regard to the need to promote public confidence in the criminal justice system when developing the sentencing guidelines and monitoring their impact. The Council has interpreted this duty more widely as an obligation to take direct steps to promote public confidence in the criminal justice system, and sentencing in particular.

In 2019 the Council published research to consider what drives public confidence in the criminal justice system with the aim of understanding the public’s knowledge of and attitudes towards sentencing, sentencing guidelines and the criminal justice system. As part of this research, interviewers also carried out in-depth interviews with victims of crime. The report on the findings of the research can be viewed at: https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Public-Knowledge-of-and-Confidence-in-the-Criminal-Justice-System-and-Sentencing.pdf