Craig Sweeney

[ewx]

Sentencing him to life in jail at Cardiff Crown Court, Judge John Griffith Williams QC said he would not be considered for parole for five years - and only then if he did not pose a significant risk of re-offending

So the minimum possible time inside is five years. Given that he's a repeat offender anyway, one might reasonable imagine that whoever is in charge of determining whether he poses a "significant risk" will take a rather skeptical view. The judge seems to be of similar view. Nevertheless, I have some sympathy with the view that five years is kind of short for kidnap and rape, even in the face of positively angelic behaviour for the duration. So how was that number reached?

"The judge has to determine first of all the notional sentence, which in this case was 18 years," he said.
"Then that is cut by half to reach the actual sentence. Then the judge is obliged to cut a third off in view of the guilty plea."

The arithmetic seems a bit off there. However assuming that the reporting is basically right, and the journalist involved merely too innumerate to notice the discrepancy, isn't the government ultimately attacking its own sentencing policy here?

Comments

[aldabra]

It looks to me, merely from the news reports, that this particular chap should be in for significantly longer than five years, and the age of this particular victim is a significantly aggravating factor. It gives you some sympathy with the "life means life" crowd, who generally I try not to associate with.

And it's a bit alarming if life routinely means about five years. I mean, why call it "life" then?

Er, I appear to be doing some maternal frothing here. I'll go away now.

[pjc50.livejournal.com]

And it's a bit alarming if life routinely means about five years. I mean, why call it "life" then?

As you say, expecting life to mean life puts you immediately on the right wing. "Life" does indeed often mean a few years, or at most a decade, with a very few exceptions where the Home Secretary has specifically intervened (e.g. Myra Hindley)

The arithmetic is probably slightly off because he has already served time on remand which will be deducted. See this other example (http://www.squandertwo.net/blog/2006/06/life-of-lifetimes.htm) of a life sentence which means about six years. I don't understand the halving thing, it appears to apply to all sentences.

[pm215]

According to the Sentencing Guidelines (PDF) para 2.1.3 (p18):

Where a prison sentence of 12 months or more is imposed on an offender who is not classified as "dangerous", that offender will be entitled to be released from custody after completing half of the sentence. The whole of the second half of the sentence will be subject to licence requirements.

(This has all been tightened up by the Criminal Justice Act 2003. Section 229 talks about what 'dangerous' means here. Note also the stuff about life sentences, which I suspect of being a bone thrown to the life-means-life crowd, though I haven't looked closely at them.)

Note that the Sentencing Guidelines say that the sentencer is supposed to clearly spell out what the sentence means and that it's really in two parts, one custodial and one in the community.

[senji.livejournal.com]

Speaking as a leftie, I want life to mean life; and if you don't mean life then just don't call it life dammit.

This doesn't mean I want more people to be in prison for life, just that I want people to say what they mean.

[arnhem.livejournal.com]

What I think I want is for judges to say (not to me, ideally ...) "you should be imprisoned for between X and Y years (dependent on behaviour and apparent level of rehabilitation), and then be released on license for a further Z years", and to be able to tune all three of these to suit the situation.

The problem, then, of course, is the battle between allowing judges the facility to adjust their sentencing to the specific situation (the historical approach) and the desire to see that the punishment of comparable crimes is fair between instances (the modern, prescriptive, approach).

[pm215]

It looks to me as if the 'headline' sentence figures should be looked at more from the offender's viewpoint -- so a '10 year' sentence means "after 10 years you will be out of the clutches of the criminal justice system completely, parole and all", and 'life' means "potentially we may never let you go". They don't seem to be intended to specify the minimum or average jail term.

[arnhem.livejournal.com]

The journalist has failed to factor in time spent on remand, I think. And by the looks of it, that must be taken away at the last rather than the first stage (which seems broken to me, but ...). And then they've rounded down to the nearest integer?

I think that if you trust the parole system to work, then it would not be unreasonable to allow prisoners to apply for parole at any time; in which case setting a time before which they can't is merely reducing inefficiency in the system ...

So, anyone want to bet on the chances that the offender was themselves a victim of sexual assault as a child?

[arnhem.livejournal.com]

Actually, thinking again about it, it now seems quite correct that the time on remand should be deducted at the end of the calculation. I need more sleep.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Makes sense to me.

[(Anonymous)]

There seems to be some confusion about what a custodial sentence means. When someone is given a custodial sentence, they generally spend the first part of the sentence in prison, and the rest of the sentence released on licence.

Someone released on licence is not free. He is still under sentence, and is supervised by a parole officer. He must follow the terms of his licence, e.g. living in a certain place, visiting his parole officer regularly etc. The licencee can be returned to prison without the need for a charge or trial if he breaches the terms of his licence, even if he doesn't commit a new offence.

So in this case Craig Sweeney will be under sentence for the rest of his life. He will spend at least the first five years of that sentence in prison (and probably a lot longer than that).

Of course, no-one in the press seems able or willing to understand or explain this.

[gareth-rees.livejournal.com]

Livejournal logged me out again, sorry. Anyway, Wikipedia seems to have good sumaries of what "life imprisonment" means in England & Wales (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_sentence#Interpretation_in_Europe) and what release on licence means in the context of a life sentence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_licence).

[gareth-rees.livejournal.com]

Of course, public understanding is not helped when the prosection lawyer makes such misleading comments as the one quoted by the BBC:

"The judge has to determine first of all the notional sentence, which in this case was 18 years. Then that is cut by half to reach the actual sentence. Then the judge is obliged to cut a third off in view of the guilty plea."

By "notional sentence" he means "maximum term spent in prison". By "actual sentence" he means "tariff, i.e. minimum term spent in prison before he becomes eligible for parole". In fact, this quote is so misleading that if it was reported accurately I can't believe it wasn't intended as deliberate misinformation.

[oldbloke.livejournal.com]

I know I'm in a minority, but there are a few cases where I wish we still had the death penalty.

[(Anonymous)]

No, Evans and Bentley wouldn't qualify for hanging under _my_ rules, which would be _extremely_ tight.