§ Lord MORRIS of BORTH-Y-GESTasked Her Majesty's Government:
In reference to the cases of persons under the age of 21 who are guilty of an offence and in whose cases a court is 1206WA satisfied that no method of dealing with them is appropriate other than to impose imprisonment, whether there is any evidence (and if so what) which shows whether, but for the existence of the restrictions contained in Section 3 of the Criminal Justice Act 1961, the aggregate length of the sentences expected to be passed by courts in such cases, as compared with the aggregate length of the sentences now passed so as to comply with those restrictions, and assuming equal numbers of the cases, would be (a) less or (b) about the same or (c) more.
§ The MINISTER of STATE, HOME OFFICE (Lord Harris of Greenwich)The effect of removing the restrictions imposed by Section 3 of the Criminal Justice Act 1961 is difficult to predict. Part of the dissatisfaction of the courts is with their inability to impose a prison sentence of more than 6 months on a young offender unless a sentence of 3 years or more is justified. This implies that if the restriction were removed some prison sentences would become longer, and if this were the dominant effect the average length of sentence would increase—by how much it is impossible to forecast with any precision. The main effect of the removal of the restrictions would be likely to be a shift from borstal sentences to prison sentences. The effect of this shift would certainly be to increase the prison population (with some offsetting decrease in the borstal population), at a time when both the young prisoner centres and the local prisons (in which any additional population would have to be confined) are already under very severe strain.