Miscellaneous amendments to sentencing guidelines 2024

The issue

A judge with a particular interest and expertise in sentencing children, invited the Council to consider changing the name of the Sentencing children and young people guideline, to the Sentencing children guideline. The reason for this would be to make it clear to all sentencers (but particularly to judges sentencing children in the Crown Court) that children should not be dealt with as mini adults. The change would also align with the approach being taken in other publications such as the Crown Court Compendium.

Prior to the publication of the Council’s ‘Sentencing children and young people’ guideline there was a Sentencing Guidelines’ Council publication entitled ‘Overarching Principles – Sentencing Youths’. In 2016 the Sentencing Council published a consultation paper proposing a new guideline and seeking views. At that stage the Council called its new draft guideline Overarching Principles – Sentencing Youths. However, although the Council did not ask a direct question seeking views on the name of the guideline, a number of respondents commented on it. As a result of this feedback the Council decided to adopt the title ‘Sentencing children and young people’.

There are other guidelines specifically for sentencing under 18s which have ‘children and young people’ in the titles:

Bladed articles and offensive weapons (having in public/education premises and threats) – children and young people

Child sex offences committed by children or young persons (sections 9-12) (offender under 18)/ Sexual activity with a child family member (offender under 18)/ Inciting a child family member to engage in sexual activity (offender under 18)

Robbery – Sentencing children and young people

Sexual offences – Sentencing children and young people

The Council also considered whether all references across sentencing guidelines to ‘children and young people’ or ‘child or young person’ should be changed to ‘children’ or ‘child’ as appropriate and concluded that this should be done.

In addition, the Council considered that it would be helpful to add a short section to the General approach section at the beginning of the Sentencing children and young people guideline explaining the transition of under 18 year olds to adulthood and including the relevant information available in the expanded explanation of the mitigating factor 'Age and/or lack of maturity' from the sentencing guidelines for adults.

The proposed changes

The Council therefore seeks views on the following:

1. Changing the name of all guidelines for sentencing under 18s to use the term ‘children’ rather than ‘children and young people’
2. Changing all references to offenders aged under 18 throughout sentencing guidelines and supporting materials to ‘child’ or ‘children’
3. Adding the following note to the beginning of the Sentencing children and young people guideline:

Note: This guideline applies to sentencing those aged under 18 at the date of finding of guilt, but many of the principles will also be relevant to sentencing young adults. Where an offender has turned 18 between the commission of the offence and conviction the court should take as its starting point the sentence likely to have been imposed on the date at which the offence was committed, but applying the purposes of sentencing adult offenders. See paragraphs 6.1 to 6.3 below.

The impact

The Council does not anticipate any impact on prison or probation resources from these changes.