🛑 Truth Watch: JUSTICE & other charities warn Sentencing Bill risks more pregnant women behind bars  – JUSTICE

27 April 2025 
 
JUSTICE and 20 other organisations and individuals have written to the Justice Secretary raising serious concerns about the Sentencing Guidelines Bill. The Bill would prevent the Sentencing Council from giving judges advice on taking personal characteristics such as pregnancy into account when deciding whether to order a report from the probation service to help them decide on the appropriate sentence for someone.   

The letter also highlights other ‘personal characteristics’ such as race, explaining that pre-sentence reports help judges understand backgrounds unfamiliar to them, levelling the playing field and making sentencing fairer.  
 

Stephanie Needleman, Legal Director of JUSTICE:  

“We all want fair sentencing, free from bias based on skin colour or ethnicity. And we know sending pregnant people to prison risks lifechanging harm to mothers and babies. Pre-sentence reports help judges understand more about those whose backgrounds are unfamiliar to them, or who have particular health concerns – yet this Bill would deny judges adequate guidance on when such reports would be particularly useful.  

“Instead of narrowing access, the government should strengthen sentencing by expanding the use of pre-sentence reports — a key tool for delivering fair, informed justice.” 

 
Heidi Stewart, Chief Executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS): 

“Under the current sentencing guidelines, hundreds of pregnant women every year are sent to prison. These women face increased risk of miscarriage, pregnancy complications, and in some of the worst cases, the stillbirth or death of their newborn baby.  

“These proposals would have changed the way pregnant women are treated by the justice system – recognising that there are very few instances where prison is a reasonable or acceptable sentence. Without them, we are deeply concerned for every pregnant woman who is incarcerated, endangering her health and her ability to access the healthcare she needs – whether that is choosing to continue her pregnancy or not.” 

 
Mark Day, Deputy Director of the Prison Reform Trust: 

“The government urgently needs to press pause on this reckless and clumsy piece of statute. It will have a chilling effect on efforts to address well-documented disproportionate outcomes for minority ethnic groups in the justice system. It could also undermine the fair and appropriate treatment by the courts of vulnerable groups such as pregnant women and the mothers of young children. Politicians are playing games with real people’s lives. They need to step up and take the heat out of this debate before they do lasting damage.” 

Letter and signatories in full:  

Dear Lord Chancellor, 

Open Letter re Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill 

We write to you as a broad coalition of organisations representing the interests of minority and vulnerable groups in the justice system to express serious concerns with the provisions of the Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill. 

The Bill is intended to prevent the Sentencing Council from issuing guidance on the use of pre-sentence reports with reference to “different personal characteristics of an offender”, which includes an individual’s ethnic, cultural or faith background. Furthermore, the legislation is so widely drawn that it would prevent the Sentencing Council from issuing guidelines with reference to other “personal characteristics”, such as children and young people, the elderly, individuals with mental or physical health conditions, those who are pregnant and primary carers, and so on. Indeed, the Council’s new ‘Imposition of community and custodial sentences’ guideline, which it has now paused as a result of the introduction of this emergency legislation, contained specific and extensive direction on sentencing pregnant individuals and mothers of very young children. 

The Bill is directly counter to the findings of the Lammy review which underlined that pre-sentence reports may be “particularly important for shedding light on individuals from backgrounds unfamiliar to the judge” when passing sentence. It is important to note that it is for the sentencing judge or magistrates to decide on what the appropriate sentence will be. 

The Lammy review highlighted clear evidence of disproportionality in sentencing. The evidence shows clearly that these issues have persisted to the present day, with custodial sentences more likely with respect to defendants from Chinese (41%), Asian groups (16% – 21%), Black groups (9% – 19%), as compared to White British defendants after adjusting for other characteristics. In addition, Romani (Gypsy), Roma and Irish Traveller people are significantly overrepresented in the criminal justice system with data suggesting they make up 5-7% of the prison population, despite being 0.12% of the usual resident population of England and Wales per the 2021 census. This must be addressed urgently.  

A lack of guidance means that sentencers may not fully and adequately consider the significant risks that custodial sentences pose to the health and wellbeing of both mother and child; risks that have resulted in the deaths of several babies in the prison estate.  

More broadly, we are deeply concerned by the potential chilling effect and detrimental consequences which the legislation could have on work to ensure that minority and vulnerable groups in the justice system are treated fairly and appropriately by the courts. Given the sensitivity and scope of the proposed reform, it is only right that such measures be subject to proper debate or scrutiny, with adequate time to consider its potential unintended consequences.  

We would urge you to withdraw the legislation and give careful consideration to these serious concerns. In doing so, you would have our full support. 

Yours sincerely, 

Yvonne MacNamara, The Traveller Movement 

Tom Southerden, Programme Director for Law & Human Rights, Amnesty International UK 

Sumayyah Koyshar, Policy & Campaigns Volunteer at Roma Support Group 

Stephanie Needleman, Legal Director, JUSTICE 

Simona Lazar, Union Romani Voice 

Shoaib M Khan, Human Rights Lawyer 

Ruth Ehrlich, Head of Policy & Campaigns, Liberty 

Professor Robert Moore, North Wales Regional Equality Network 

Pierre Makhlouf, Legal Director, Bail for Immigration Detainees 

Pia Sinha, Chief Executive, Prison Reform Trust 

Naomi Delap, Director, Birth Companions 

Matt Foot, Co-Director APPEAL 

Mary Marvel, Deputy CEO, Advicenow 

Jess Southgate, Deputy CEO, Agenda Alliance 

Iveta Bangova, CEO, European Drom 

Helen Littlewood, CEO, Clifton Learning Partnership  

Heidi Stewart, CEO, British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS)  

Harriet Wistrich, Director of Centre for Women’s Justice  

Emma Torr, Co-Director, APPEAL  

Deniz Uğur, Deputy Director, End Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW)  

Denisa Gannon