The scale of money laundering, fraud and other economic crime in the UK, is thought to run to tens or hundreds of billions of pounds per year. In December 2019 the Treasury Committee found various regulatory and legislative failings in the way in which these crimes were being tackled in the UK. It urged the Government to make improvements to the supervisory system and to introduce new powers to combat economic crime. The Government agrees about the need to tackle these crimes. It set out its overall approach in its July 2019 Economic Crime Plan. The Plan covers the years 2019-2022 and draws together all the work being conducted by the public and private sector. The Royal United Services Institute said that as at September 2020, 23% of actions in the plan had been completed, 59% were in progress, 9% were overdue, 6% of actions either had no due date or had been paused.
Documents to download
-
Reductions in sentence for a guilty plea (215 KB, PDF)
Background
Offenders who plead guilty will usually receive a reduced sentence, compared to the sentence they would have received had they been convicted following a not guilty plea. This was a well established principle under the common law, and has since been put on a statutory footing supplemented by sentencing guidelines. The rationale behind this is that it encourages defendants who know they are guilty to enter a guilty plea at the earliest possible stage, so saving court time and money and saving witnesses (including victims) from having to attend court to give evidence.
Current approach
The level of reduction is at the discretion of the court, although current sentencing guidelines require that the usual reduction will be one third where the guilty plea was indicated at the first stage of proceedings. A reduced discount of one quarter is suggested where the plea was only entered after the first stage of proceedings, reducing on a sliding scale to a maximum of one tenth where the plea was entered on the first day of the trial. The reduction should normally be reduced further, even to zero, if the guilty plea is entered during the course of the trial.
Previous proposals for change
In December 2010, the Ministry of Justice published a green paper that included a proposal to increase the maximum reduction in sentence for a guilty plea from one third to one half. The Coalition Government said that this would encourage more defendants to plead guilty at an early stage, so reducing inefficiencies and “sparing victims needless worry” about attending court. However, critics argued that this change could undermine public confidence in sentencing if it results in much lower sentences for serious offenders. The Coalition Government withdrew the proposal in June 2011. The then Prime Minister said the Government had concluded that with a one half reduction, sentences would be too lenient, the wrong message would be sent out to criminals and public confidence in the system would be eroded.
The current guideline was subject to public consultation in 2016 which led to a number of changes to the draft version. The Sentencing Council had, in the draft guideline, proposed lowering the reductions available after the first hearing, but respondents to the consultation said that this could in fact lead to an increase in the number of trials due to defendants deciding not to plead guilty.
Documents to download
-
Reductions in sentence for a guilty plea (215 KB, PDF)
Related posts
-
-
The Forensic Science Regulator and Biometrics Strategy 2019-20 was introduced by Darren Jones MP following the Private Members' Bills Ballot on 9 January 2020. First reading took place on 5 February 2020 and the Bill's second reading is due on 25 September 2020.
-
The Troubled Families Programme (TFP) is a programme in England administered by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG). The programme conducts targeted interventions for families experiencing multiple problems, including crime, anti-social behaviour, truancy, unemployment, mental health problems and domestic abuse. This briefing examines the TFP since 2012, details MHCLG evaluations of the programme, and describes recent commentary and potential future directions for the programme.
