Letter: Police views on sentencing

Sir: I wonder if any of your other readers have discerned what is for me a disturbing recent trend. This concerns the manner in which senior police officers express what appear to be official views as to their lack of satisfaction with sentences passed on offenders by the courts.

Not too long ago we witnessed a chief constable condemning what he regarded as the lack of severity in a sentence passed upon a juvenile rapist. In the Independent (26 March), a senior policewoman expressed her lack of satisfaction with what she regarded as an insufficiently severe sentence passed upon a driver convicted of causing death by careless driving while under the influence of drink. She is said to have felt 'absolutely horrified' and 'very disappointed with the sentence'.

It is perfectly understandable, and perhaps proper, for police officers to express views on sentencing in a private capacity, either individually or collectively through their professional associations. However, when they do so in an official capacity and in public in respect of individual cases, this seems to me to be going down an undesirable path and one that seems likely to make them subject to concern about their degree of independence.

It seems to me that one of the functions of the police is, in collaboration with the Crown Prosecution Service, to bring alleged offenders before the courts - no more and no less. The police have the respect and concern of many of us in these troubled times; recent instances of the kind I have described may tend to erode this and cause some of us increasing disquiet.

Yours faithfully,

H. PRINS

Department of Social Services

Loughborough University

Loughborough, Leicestershire