CBA Lecture: Sentencing and Mental Health: Borrowed Concepts and Human Rights Principles

This presentation will examine how sentencing judges in England and Wales determine whether offenders convicted of serious offences belong in the prison system or mental health system, or should be managed by a combination of both. It will show that the leading sentencing cases from the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) and the Sentencing Council’s 2020 Guideline onSentencing offenders with mental disorders, developmental disorders or neurological impairments tend to prioritise culpability and public protection. In individual cases, judges often borrow doctrines from the trial stage to determine sentence, and this tends to result in more punitive outcomes. These sentencing policies do not adequately respond to the very real risks imprisonment poses to vulnerable offenders. This presentation will show that a different approach based on human rights principles is possible.

Biography:
Dr Ailbhe O’Loughlin is a Senior Lecturer at York Law School, University of York. Her research focuses on the intersection between mental health and criminal justice and she teaches criminology, criminal law, mental health law and mental capacity law. Her work on sentencing practices and mental health has been published in the Criminal Law Review. In 2022, she wrote an issues paper entitled Mental Disorder, Disability and Sentencingfor the Sentencing Academy and led a literature review entitled Mental Health and Sentencing for the Scottish Sentencing Council.