Lady Dorrian

The guideline, which was approved by the High Court in November 2021, has applied since 26 January 2022 to the sentencing of young people aged 24 or under when convicted of an offence.

The council has a statutory duty to review its guidelines from time to time and takes a staged approach to this, involving reviews after both one year and three years in force.

For the one-year review of the Sentencing young people guideline, the council analysed sentencing data for the period 26 January 2022 to 25 January 2023, the first year of the guideline’s operation, and the five preceding years. In addition to data on offenders aged 24 and under, the review also includes analysis of data on offenders aged 25 and over for an indicative comparison.

Among the review’s key findings are that:

• there is no sign that the guideline had any unintended consequences in its first year or that it has affected court volumes or the pattern of offending by young people;
• custody rates for offenders aged both under 25 and 25 and over fell in 2022-23 but the drop was greater for the 21 to 24 age group – a causal link with the guideline cannot be established on statistics alone and other factors, such as Covid-19 and the presumption against short sentences of 12 months or less, are likely to have played a part in this; and
• the evidence is inconclusive as to whether the guideline has affected the rate of community payback order disposals for young people.

The Lord Justice Clerk, Lady Dorrian, chair of the council, said: “The council is pleased to publish this research review, which is the first in its programme of routine reviews of sentencing guidelines. We hope that it will help to increase understanding of the sentencing of young people by setting out initial evidence of how the guideline has been operating in practice. 

“However, it is only the first stage in our review process. Now that the guideline has been in effect for a sufficient period of time to allow more in-depth examination of its potential impacts we will, in line with our methodology, begin a wider-ranging review of the evidence available. This will involve both qualitative and quantitative research, exploring the guideline’s operation between 26 January 2023 and 25 January 2024 and the same period in 2024 to 2025, in addition to its first year. The one-year review provides a solid evidence base for that.”

She continued: “The council anticipated that the guideline would have the greatest effect on sentencing decisions for offenders aged 21 to 24, leading to a greater emphasis on rehabilitation and a possible change to sentencing practice as a result. While there are some indications of this, there is also evidence that courts were in fact already approaching the sentencing of those under 25 differently from those aged 25 and over during the five years before the guideline’s introduction. In order to gain a more detailed understanding of how the guideline is being applied in practice, we need a larger dataset, as well as to carry out research with sentencers and others.”