Over To You

One of the more satisfying aspects of being a magistrate is the work I do for the Magistrates In The Community (MIC) project, which operates under the auspices of the Magistrates’ Association. Its objective is to bring a greater awareness to the community of what magistrates do, who they are, where they come from, how they are trained and what their powers are. In pairs, we visit organisations like Rotary, Round Table, Women’s Institutes, as well as local community groups, PTAs and the like. We also, increasingly, go into schools as part of the citizenship element of the curriculum.

We tailor the detail of the presentation to the particular type of group, but generally cover the same ground; after briefly introducing ourselves we invite the audience/class to take part in a quiz to establish how much they already know, before moving onto a sentencing case study for which we divide people into ‘benches’ of three and invite them to decide - as a bench - what sentence is appropriate for the offender concerned.

The quiz answers often surprise people - that the magistracy dates back to the fourteenth century, that it deals with more than 95% of all offences, that we have no legal qualifications, and most surprisingly that we are not paid for our work.

The sentencing exercise is a constant source of encouragement to me. In addition to a sheet setting out the facts of the case, the previous convictions of the offender and his/her personal circumstances, we also hand out copies of the appropriate page from the Bench Book guidelines together with a structured sentencing form. We set out the four sentencing bands available (fine/discharge, community order, custody, commit to crown court for sentence) and then let them get on with it whilst we circulate answering any questions and giving clarification as needed.

Recently, in schools we have been using the fictional case of one Terry Ball (22), convicted after trial of ABH to a bus driver. Our notes suggest that the appropriate sentence would be either a high-end community order with compensation or custody. Almost always our ad hoc benches arrive in the same area, their final decision depending on how important they feel it to be to keep Ball in his stable employment, providing for his young wife and two children. The only ‘mistake’ that crops up is that those who decide on custody will often also impose compensation for the victim. Interestingly, if we then introduce our powers to suspend a custodial sentence, the majority of those who have opted for custody also see the value of keeping him working (albeit with demanding requirements) and able also to pay compensation.

We encounter these outcomes irrespective or the age or youth of our audience; a reassuring demonstration of the underlying thesis of the magistracy, that if you take ordinary members of the public and equip them with starting point guidelines and a structure for their deliberations, they will usually come up with the ‘right’ decision. And, of course, it’s good to know that when people are given the facts they come up with the same sentences as we would, no matter that their preconception is that we are too soft/sending too many people to prison.