§ Mr. Greville Jannerasked the Attorney-General whether he will issue advice to magistrates regarding their sentencing procedures of football hooligans that these hooligans should wherever feasible be sentenced to spend Saturday afternoons at attendance centres or doing community service or given conditional discharges on terms that they report to the police on Saturday afternoons.
§ The Solicitor-GeneralThis is a question for my noble Friend. It is not open to him, or to any other Minister, to direct magistrates as to the manner in which they should exercise their discretion when imposing sentences within the limits laid down by Parliament. Moreover, although attendance centres are fairly widely available for offenders under the age of 17, those at present available for offenders aged 17 to 21 are available only at Manchester and Greenwich, and there is no centre for offenders over the age of 21. The making of community service orders is limited to those courts within whose jurisdiction schemes for such orders have been made available. Within those areas magistrates' courts are already fully aware 181W of their powers to order community service. Even in cases in which the magistrates are of the opinion that a community service order might be appropriate, it may be made only with the offender's consent. With regard to orders of conditional discharge, the only condition which may be attached is that the offender must not commit any offence within a specific period, and there is therefore no power to attach to such an order a condition requiring the offender to report to the police.