Police and Justice Bill

I am simply saying that a fine is punitive, and if someone can afford to pay that is well and good, but if someone comes from a deprived background they are less likely to be able to pay. The rush to summary justice risks losing the purpose of changing behaviour. The clause as it currently stands sets out the right to give conditional cautions with the sole objective of punishing the offender. Punishment such as a fine by itself allows the offender to walk away from the reality of what he has done. Without an element of rehabilitation and reparation, it will do nothing to address the underlying reasons why the criminal or disorderly act was committed in the first place. My concern is that the imposition of fines will become easier. As the Solicitor-General said himself, even when a magistrates court imposes fines, chasing the money is a real issue, so I cannot see how this approach will prove an advantage in such circumstances. It will entirely miss out the criminal justice system, which is at least able to give the public the confidence of knowing that the person in question is being charged and brought to court, and punished by a sentencing judge or magistrate. We Liberal Democrats think that the current principle of conditional cautions—that only conditions that facilitate rehabilitation of the offender, or which ensure that they make reparation for the offence, may be applied—is a very good thing and the right approach to those who have admitted guilt. It is very important that we find ways of diverting people from offending at the earliest possible stage, which is why the conditional caution is such a constructive tool. The extension of conditional cautions to wider punitive conditions will do nothing to address the underlying problems, the rising prison population or the 60 per cent. reoffending rate. I recognise that calls for due process and the involvement of lawyers, juries and judges do not make for the most exciting of rallying cries, but if we take the inappropriate step of cutting them out of the legal system, the quality of justice and the cause of communal harmony may well suffer. Someone interviewed on TV might say, ““The big problem with our criminal justice system is that it takes so long and it costs so much to deal with so many crimes. We need to speed up punishment for minor crimes, so that people can be punished quickly and we can move on and spend more time on serious crimes.”” Essentially, that is the Government’s justification for the proposed new police powers. They will undoubtedly speed things up, but at the serious cost of omitting due legal process.