Stop handing out so many suspended sentences, courts told

Offenders in Norfolk carrying out work as part of a community order.Judges, magistrates, court clerks and probation officers have all been instructed to stop handing down so many suspended prison sentences and switch instead to giving offenders community orders.A leaked circular sent earlier this month by the chair of the Sentencing Council, Lord Justice Treacy, to courts across England and Wales warned that a punitive culture had developed – imposing suspended sentences “as a more s