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Return to the bad old days?

01 May 1993

On 13 May Home Secretary Kenneth Clarke announced that the Criminal Justice Act, in force for seven months, would be substantially modified in the light of criticisms of unit fines and statutory disregard of previous convictions (see "Panic on the Bench", Statewatch Vol 3 no 2). The unit fine system would be replaced by a discretionary system of fines, and sections of the act dealing with previous convictions of petty offenders would be repealed to enable persistent offenders to be sent to prison.

The U-turn, announced within days of Clarke's stated determination to retain the unit fine system, albeit in modified form, attracted widespread criticism. The unit fines system, it was pointed out by lawyers, had been introduced voluntarily in pilot schemes and it was its success and popularity with magistrates and clerks that had led to its introduction into statute. It needed fine tuning, not axing. Penal reformers were concerned that, with magistrates once again entitled to sentence petty offenders on their record, the prisons would fill up once more with non-violent offenders who should not be there. Police and some magistrates, however, welcomed the news; a spokesman for ACPO said that "magistrates will be able to impose effective sanctions".

Independent 14.5.93.