- Conference
- 2025 Police, Probation and CAFCASS Conference
- Date
- 17 June 2025
- Decision
- Carried
Conference welcomes the government’s independent Sentencing Review. Conference notes that the Review:
1. Was commissioned in the aftermath of the 2024 prison overcrowding crisis in order to address the pressure that this placed on the whole criminal justice system, and in particular on the Probation Service;
2. Has in its terms of reference the principle that greater use must be made of non-custodial sentences.
Conference welcomes the submission which UNISON made to the Review, including the following points:
3. The Probation Service can step up to provide the expansion in community sentences which the government requires, but only if it is properly funded going forward, and removed from central civil service control;
4. The Sentencing Council should make changes to its sentencing guidelines to remove community orders for offences which could be better managed via a range of disposals like fines, bans or compensation orders and which would remove unnecessary workload from Probation Service staff, thereby enabling them to work more effectively with medium and high risk people;
5. The profession of probation should be better represented on the Sentencing Council;
6. Post sentence supervision by Probation of those leaving prison after serving sentences of less than 12 months should be abolished to free up probation resources for medium and high risk work
7. UNISON supports an end to the imprisonment of all women, other than the small minority whose risk of harm cannot be managed in the community and who may require specialist intervention in a more secure setting. We advocate the expansion of women specific community sentences, women’s day reporting centres and local residential provision to take its place;
8. Day Reporting Centres, widely used in previously in England and Wales, and currently in every state in the USA, should be reintroduced to provide additional community sentencing options for medium to high risk men and women. Pilot day reporting centres should be set up as soon as possible;
9. Sending fewer people to prison would enable the redirection of resources to victims work. Restorative justice should form a central part of the offer to victims from the criminal justice system, but must be properly resourced and offered as an outcome to the court;
10. The Sentencing Council should investigate what changes it could make to its guidelines to better facilitate restorative justice in both pre- and post-sentencing contexts;
11. The Independent Panel should revisit David Lammy’s 2017 Review into disproportionality in the criminal justice system to ensure that his recommendations are fully taken on board in their deliberations.
Conference calls upon the Service Group Executive to work with the Probation Service Sector Committee to:
a. Continue to promote the principles set out in our submission to the Sentencing Review in relation to sentencing reform;
b. Maximise the opportunities presented by implementation of the Sentencing Review recommendations to improve the working lives of our probation members in relation to workloads and stress at work;
c. Argue the case for greater investment in probation pay and conditions to seek to ensure that the Probation Service has the highest calibre of staff to enable it to deliver on the Sentencing Review recommendations.