Michael Zander QC reflects on the negative response to Lord Carter's sentencing proposals
The Carter Report on sentencing must be a contender for the title of “Worst Report of Recent Years”. Lord Carter made two main recommendations: build more prisons; and adopt a Minnesota-style structured sentencing grid system. He did little research or consultation. In particular, he failed even to mention the New Zealand system despite the fact that New Zealand has for the past several years been engaged in a major sentencing reform project.
The consultation paper issued by the Working Group established to pursue Carter's sentencing proposal was plainly driven by Carter's approach—indeed the circuit judges in their response went so far as to say that the questions were carefully worded… “suggestive of a decision already taken”. This no doubt was due to the fact that the leader of the secretariat and several of her team had worked on the Carter report. Incredibly, the consultation paper also failed to consider the New Zealand system.
At the time, one
