Pre‐Sentence Reports: Does Quality Matter?

In recent years much attention has been paid to research into the value and effectiveness of pre‐sentence reports and this has contributed to the emergence of the concept of “quality assurance”. This encompasses the practice of monitoring reports for “quality” and “effectiveness” and the assumption that there is a positive association between these two factors. In other words, higher quality will normally be associated with a higher level of agreement or concordance between report recommendation and sentencing outcome. Using evidence gained from a sample of pre‐sentence reports from a busy magistrates' court in the south‐west of England, the authors' three main findings show that this is not the case. First, contrary to expectation, there was little or no relationship between quality of report and concordance rate for the whole sample of pre‐sentence reports. Second, whilst there was some relationship between quality of report and concordance for those reports which proposed community sentences, this was not significant. Finally, whilst report writers were generally in favour of quality assurance systems, they did not have any universal definition of “quality” in relation to pre‐sentence reports. As a result of these findings the authors question existing practice and make several suggestions for improvement, including the replacement of pre‐sentence reports with a new personal social enquiry report and an alternative model of quality assurance based on models from social science. Finally, several key recommendations are identified as essential in order to safeguard the crucial role of the Probation Service as adviser to sentencers.