Debate contribution: Sentencing Practices in Northern Ireland

Debate contribution by Mr Mark Durkan on 23 June 2025.

MLA

Mr Mark Durkan

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

23 June 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Sentencing Practices in Northern Ireland

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5046375

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I welcome the motion and the urgency that it places on sentencing reform. The focus today has, understandably, been on lenient sentencing and serious crimes such as sexual offences, and, of course, I agree with what Members have said about that. However, I will use my time to highlight another part of our justice system that receives far too little scrutiny. There is something fundamentally broken about a system that jails vulnerable women for stealing sanitary products and clothing while those who poison our communities with drugs, harm others or destroy our environment walk free with a slap on the wrist. Worse yet, some are granted anonymity. The current system is not dispensing justice but deepening injustice. It punishes poverty, while power gets a pass. Poor women are being sent to prison for non-violent offences at an alarming rate. Some 86% of women in custody are serving sentences for non-violent offences, most commonly for low-level economic crimes of survival: shoplifting and petty crime. Two thirds are mothers, and many are the sole carers of young children. Imprisoning them does not just harm the individual but devastates entire families, making it harder to rebuild lives. Children end up in care. Mums struggle to find employment with their criminal record and can and often do fall into a downward spiral of offending and exploitation. Many of those women are victims of abuse, addiction, mental ill-health or homelessness, and then they become victims again of a system that criminalises their desperation. A glance at local court cases in my constituency highlights the glaring imbalance in our justice system. A 31-year-old woman who expressed shame about her crime is imprisoned for eight months for shoplifting in a local Boots because she had no money. A young single mother is given jail time for stealing a £10 pair of jeans. Meanwhile, a domestic abuser who terrorised his ex-partner and whose actions were described by a judge as "utterly appalling" is handed a suspended sentence. Drug dealers are peddling poison through our estates in an area ravaged by addiction, where people young and old are dying. Anonymity orders, as I mentioned, are too often granted in such cases, and I feel deeply uneasy about that. Suspended sentences spare them jail time and anonymity shields them further, doing nothing for transparency, deterrence or the lives ruined and communities left exposed. This is not just about women. It is about whom we punish and whom we do not. Look at what happens when people harm our communities in other ways. The Mobuoy dump is not just one of the North's, the UK's or Europe's worst environmental crimes; it will cost hundreds of millions of pounds to clean up. Yet, after a decade-long wait, justice means just a few months in jail, with no compensation sought or awarded for lasting damage.

I thank the Member for his intervention. I am aware from a response by the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs to a question from me that he will bring a paper to his Executive colleagues seeking support for such an inquiry. It is essential that we have one, because generations here will live with the consequences.

I thank the Minister for that clarification. The public's perception is that those responsible walk away almost untouched. Where is the deterrent? Where is the urgency? This is not just about calling for tougher sentences across the board but about ensuring that the punishment fits the crime and that justice truly means justice: the chance to break the cycle of reoffending and rebuild lives. Behind every statistic is a story, one that does not make the front pages but matters just as much. Someone needed help but got punishment instead. Justice must protect the public, yes, but it must also protect the vulnerable, and that must not be forgotten as we pursue much-needed sentencing reform.

645 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:51 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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