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Return to the bad old days? (1)

01 January 1991

Return to the bad old days?
artdoc July=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would be repealed to enable persistent offenders to be sent to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.

Statewatch vol 3 no 3 May-June 1993