Member

This amendment seeks not to remove judicial discretion —indeed, I shall return to that point in a moment—but to ensure that, where an adult offender has already been sentenced twice for shoplifting, a third or subsequent conviction resulting in a community order or a suspended sentence order should, as a norm, carry a meaningful and enforceable requirement. The new clause we propose would therefore require courts, save in exceptional circumstances, to impose at least one of three measures: a curfew requirement, an exclusion requirement, or electronic whereabouts monitoring. Each of these is already well established within the Sentencing Code. This amendment does not invent new powers but would ensure that they are applied where they are most needed.