Probation Board Launch Alternative to Custodial Sentences

Working with the Lord Chief Justice, Probation Board Northern Ireland has developed a creative community based alternative to the increasing number of custodial sentences under a year, through an Enhanced Combination Order.

An information session for barristers and solicitors was held in the Inn of Court yesterday (Wednesday 2 September 2015) to launch the pilot scheme, set to commence in the County Court division areas of Ards and Armagh and South Down, and outline the anticipated benefits from this new approach.

Opening the event, Gavan Duffy QC, Chairman of the Criminal Bar Association highlighted the amount of procedural and legislative change over the last fifteen to twenty years within the Criminal Justice System.

Gavan Duffy QC remarked;

“It seems that this latest Pilot proposal for Enhanced Combination Orders may well ultimately prove to represent that most elusive quality of positive and constructive change.”

“The motivation for this scheme appears to be derived from a desire to find an alternative to the imposition of shorter prison sentences. There are a significant number of relatively young offenders who might benefit from a bespoke mechanism of sentencing which is more closely tailored to the causes of their offending behaviour. Enhanced Combination Orders may be more challenging in its expectations of young offenders and provides for a greater involvement with the victims of such crime. We will await with interest the outcomes from the pilot”

For more information on the pilot can be found here