RSSeNEWS to be determined...

Interviewed on BBC Radio 4's More or Less programme on 18 December RSS Vice-President Sheila Bird called upon the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) to research the potential development of statistical tools to help magistrates make appropriate decisions on remand.

Each year 12,000 people are remanded in prison but subsequently found not guilty. Presenter Tim Hartford asked Sheila, who works at the MRC bio-statistics unit at Cambridge University, if statistics could make the system fairer.

She called for a statistical investigation to find out if risk score for magistrates can be developed that help identify, at the point of remand, if someone is likely to be found innocent. This could be used by magistrates in their decision about remand. The tool could be coupled with randomisation, applying uncertainty to decide whether prison or community remand was appropriate.

Professor Bird explained that annually 32,000 of the individuals remanded to prison are subsequently found innocent or given non-custodial sentences. Of those, 69% are remanded at Crown Court into custody, compared with 35% at Magistrates courts.

She quoted the Ministry of Justice's statistic of an average remand time of 55 days. But she hadn't been able to discover how the terms on remand of those found innocent, not proceeded against or given community sentences compared with those given custodial sentences. Bird said she understood that data has not been collected and said doing so was "an urgent priority", that would take "no more than one month's study".

It was less just for those who given community sentences as no account is take of time spent in custody; those on remand in the community who receive custodial sentences get relief for half the time spent 'on tag'. Those found entirely innocent do not even receive an apology, Bird expected.

The MoJ said in a statement that it did not consider a decision to remand in custody someone subsequently found innocent or not given custody to be "a wrong decision". The MoJ rejected the notion that compensation for those remanded then found not guilty is appropriate.

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