The Sentencing Council for England and Wales promotes greater consistency in sentencing, whilst maintaining the independence of the judiciary. The Council produces guidelines on sentencing for the judiciary and criminal justice professionals and aims to increase public understanding of sentencing.
Do not retain this copy. Only the online version of a guideline is guaranteed to be up to date.
How offenders are sentenced in England and Wales
For an overview of how offenders are sentenced, take a look at this short video which gives the basics on what kinds of sentence there are and how judges and magistrates decide what sentence to give.
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Latest from the Sentencing Council
Sentencing Council consults on expanded explanations in guidelines
28 February 2019The Sentencing Council today launched a consultation on plans to provide expanded explanations in offence specific guidelines in England and Read More
Robbery: assessing the impact of the definitive guideline
15 February 2019The Sentencing Council has completed an assessment of the impact of the Robbery Definitive Guideline which came into force in Read More
Government publishes Tailored Review of the Sentencing Council
7 February 2019The government has published the results of its Tailored Review of the Sentencing Council. The review found that the current Read More