Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask Her Majesty's Government why there has been a decline in community service sentences; and how they intend to reverse this decline.

The proportion of offenders receiving a community sentence has gone down steadily since 2008 decreasing from 190,593 in the year ending September 2008 to 90,618 in the year ending September 2018. The decline in community sentences is in part due to the overall number of defendants sentenced falling by 14% (and falling by 35% for indictable offences) over the same period. There has also been a drop in the number of defendants coming to court, and the mix of offences has changed.

Sentencing decisions in individual cases are taken by our independent courts having regard to sentencing guidelines; the Sentencing Council has issued guidelines, which came into force in 2017, on the imposition of community and custodial sentences, to assist courts in deciding when a community sentence should be imposed. As part of our proposals for improving probation services we are considering how to improve the information that judges and magistrates get from probation services on the community sentences they deliver. We are also developing proposals to improve the quality of rehabilitative support offered by probation in the community and of pre-sentence advice to court, so that courts can better tailor community sentences to offenders’ rehabilitative needs.