A cursory view on Facebook of any court proceedings reported by the Guernsey Press has the capacity to cause concern at what the justice of the mob might bring to the island. Outrage about ‘lenient’ sentences is commonplace, particularly when those cases are of a sexual nature and involve offences against children.
It’s welcome that the president of Home Affairs has noticed this and is prepared for politicians to take a stake in the situation – something that deputies have been noticeably reluctant to do over the years.
Such concerns are not unique to Guernsey. Public ‘concern’ about lax sentences happens everywhere, but that’s no reason not to act. A recent UK review saw MPs agree that the pervading concerns about ‘soft sentencing’ represented ‘a significant long-term public policy challenge that needs to be addressed’. It also, importantly, agreed that the public, and by extension its elected representatives, should be engaged over sentencing policy.
‘Everyone involved in, or responsible for, the criminal justice system needs to take the duty to ensure public confidence extremely seriously,’ said former MP Sir Bob Neill, who led the review.
It’s arguable at present whether there is real public confidence in some of the sentences coming out of our courts. A public debate and enhanced understanding would be to everyone’s benefit.
You need to be logged in to comment. If you had an account on our previous site, you can migrate your old account and comment profile to this site by visiting this page and entering the email address for your old account. We'll then send you an email with a link to follow to complete the process.