Notes

• [1]
  What is a commensurate sentence? Commensurate to what? English sentencing law struggles to find the appropriate balance between punishing the offender for the (sometimes accidental) outcomes of his crimes with issues of culpability: why is the man who kills an old lady at a traffic junction when ‘jumping’ the red light more guilty than the man who is lucky that there was no lady crossing at the time? Is Ms Barley (see the case example later in this paper) ‘more’ guilty because her baby happened to die?
• [2]
  I first came across the term in 2011, when I read Guy Standing’s popular and influential book Precariat: the New Dangerous Class. Standing points out, in a way which is easily grasped, the reality of existence for this very large, if often invisible, social group, whose lives are grounded in social and economic conditions of real insecurity or precarity.
• [3]
  Ministry of Justice (2012) The pre-custody employment, training and education status of newly sentenced prisoners, London: Ministr y of Justice.
• [4]
  Ibid.
• [5]
  Stewart, D. (2008) The problems and needs of newly sentenced prisoners: results from a national survey, London: Ministry of Justice.
• [6]
  Ministry of Justice (2012) Research Summary 3/12, Accommodation, homelessness and reoffending of prisoners, London: Ministry of Justice.
• [7]
  Table 15, Ministry of Justice (2013) NOMS Annual Report 2012/13: Management Information Addendum, London: Ministry of Justice.
• [8]
  All these facts have been collected from the regularly updated Bromley Factfiles, produced by the Prison Reform Trust and freely available on http://www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk/Publications/Factfile. It is a wonderful resource, worth plundering.
• [9]
  Their website, www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk, is a mine of useful information.
• [10]
  All guidelines are available on the website https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk.
• [11]
  See https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/389727/table-of-new-owners-of-crcs.pdf.
• [12]
  See https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/405590/National_Standards_Jan_2015.pdf.
• [13]
  Tables 18a, 18b, 19a, Ministry of Justice (2014) Proven re-offending statistics quarterly July 2011 to June 2012, London: Ministry of Justice. Of course relying on conviction data to measure re-offending is deeply unreliable.
• [14]
  National Audit Office (2010) Managing offenders on short custodial sentences, London: The Stationery Office.
• [15]
  Table A1, Ministry of Justice (2013) 2013 Compendium of reoffending statistics and analysis, London: Ministry of Justice.
• [16]
  Table A2.1a, Ministry of Justice (2014) Offender Management Statistics Annual Tables 2013, London: Ministry of Justice.
• [17]
  Table 1, Ministry of Justice (2013) Costs per place and costs per prisoner by individual prison, National Offender Management Service Annual Report and Accounts 2012-13: Management Information Addendum, London: Ministry of Justice.
• [18]
  Table 2a, Ibid. and Hansard HC, 3 March 2010, c1251W.
• [19]
  This is a word we should certainly explore: we speak glibly of the ‘reintegration’ of offenders. Of course, many offenders were never integrated in the first place.
• [20]
  I have not asked the question whether either the French or British system is some senses racist, or institutionally racist, biased against offenders from certain ethnic minority groups. In England there is significant concern about the overrepresentation of certain Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) groups amongst the prison population: and I am constantly amazed that the French system does not even seem to collect relevant statistics.