‘Soft justice on drugs’ said the
Daily Mail
.
Over at the
Telegraph
, meanwhile, it was
‘Drug runners and dealers could avoid
prison even if caught with heroin, cocaine
or thousands of pounds worth of cannabis’.
Well, not quite. Once again it seems large
sections of the press have either misunderstood –
or wilfully misinterpreted – a story about drugs. The
new Sentencing Council guidelines – for judges to
follow when sentencing people for drugs offences –
are designed to ensure proportionate and consistent
sentencing throughout England and Wales (
see
news story, page 5
), and are described as ‘definitive’
in that they bring together guidance for the courts
for the first time.
The most significant point is that drug ‘mules’
will receive shorter sentences, and high level
production offenders will get longer sentences,
although to read some of the papers you’d think
class A drugs had been legalised overnight.
Indeed, even when the Sentencing Council first
announced it was holding a consultation on
sentencing and intended to distinguish between
those in ‘leading’ and ‘lesser’ roles (
DDN
, April
2011, page 4), the
Sun
called the plans ‘barmy’
while the
Express
said it was an attempt to ‘bring
about the de facto legalisation of drugs’.
‘There has been very mixed media coverage of
the guideline, with some suggestions that we are
reducing sentences for supply offences and others
that drug mules could receive community
sentences,’ a Sentencing Council spokesperson
tells
DDN
. ‘These suggestions are both incorrect.
We are increasing sentences for those convicted of
industrial scale production of drugs, while naïve and
coerced drug mules will receive slightly reduced
sentences. There’s no “getting soft on drug dealers”
– there’s no change on that front.’
Indeed, the council had to issue a statement
explaining exactly what a drug mule was, after
some media outlets suggested that people would
receive community sentences for smuggling drugs
like ketamine.
‘A drug mule is typically used to import
significant amounts of class A drugs, but some
reports have suggested that mules would smuggle
small amounts of class C drugs, and therefore
would not be jailed if convicted,’ says the
spokesperson. ‘The council cannot envisage a
scenario whereby an organised gang would coerce
and pay for an individual to fly into the UK with
small quantities of class C drugs, as it would make
no commercial sense.’
Although drug mules are usually vulnerable
people, they are recruited to smuggle significant
quantities of class A drugs, which is why the
council suggests the offences are likely to fall
within category two of its four categories of harm,
where the starting point is 1kg of heroin or cocaine
and sentences range from five to seven years, with
a starting point of six.
The media focus, says the council, has been to
draw conclusions about the sentence someone
would receive based on the offender’s role and
quantity of drugs, but regardless of other factors
that could be present. ‘A judge takes into account
the full details of any case and only then can
decide what category is appropriate in that
specific case, and consequently what sentence
should be passed’, the spokesperson says.
In some ways the council is, inevitably, in a
no-win situation. At the same time as being
castigated for going soft on drugs, it has faced
disapproval from liberal broadsheet columnists.
Responding to deputy chairman Lord Justice
Hughes’ statement that ‘drug abuse underlies a
huge volume of acquisitive and violent crime, and
dealing can blight communities’, Leo Benedictus
wrote in the
Guardian
, somewhat bizarrely, that
‘you might as well say that nice houses blight
communities just because some people commit
crimes to pay for them’.
The guidelines come into effect on February 27.
How binding are they – how closely will judges and
magistrates have to follow them? ‘The guidelines
must be followed, unless it’s in the interests of
justice not to do so,’ says the spokesperson.
‘There may be some exceptional cases where a
judge can ignore the guidelines. If there was an
exceptionally serious case, the judge could
sentence outside the guideline and up to the
statutory maximum – for supply, for example, they
could go up to life.’
As DrugScope said in its response to the
guidelines’ publication, the revising down of
sentencing for ‘mule’ offences is at least a positive
step forward.
However, given that many drug mules – who
tend to be women – are vulnerable, often desperate,
people living in poverty, and who may well have
been threatened with violence towards themselves
or their families, six years is still a very long
sentence. Especially, as Release points out, when
the starting point for rape sentencing is five years
and grievous bodily harm three.
While one reason is the way the sentences are
calculated – drug mules have a lesser role, but the
amount of drugs involved means the offences fall
into the higher categories of harm – another is that
the scope for the council to impose major change is
limited, as ultimately they have to work within what
is on the statute.
‘We work within the current legislation and have
no powers to change the law,’ says the spokes-
person. ‘If legislation changes, then sentencing
guidelines are amended as necessary.’ DDN
6 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| February 2012
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
News focus |
Analysis
TOWARDS A FAIRER SYSTEM OF
DRUGS SENTENCING?
New guidelines on sentencing people for drugs offences are intended to make the system
fairer.
DDN
considers whether they do, and if the press has missed the point – again
UK Border Agency x-ray showing swallowed
packets inside a person’s body: ‘Many drug
mules – who tend to be women – are
vulnerable, often desperate, people living in
poverty, and who may well have been
threatened with violence.’
Geoff Moore/Rex Features