Mental health and sentencing: How are judicial decisions made in light of the judgement of R v Vowles?

Abstract

In England and Wales, s.45A of the Mental Health Act 1983 allows a judge to pass a sentence including both an immediate direction to hospital as well as a punitive custodial element. R v Vowles provides four specific considerations for judges to attend to when considering such sentences (referred to as the ‘Vowles statements’). The section, however, remains infrequently used. The present study adopted an online experimental methodology to explore decision-making in relation to the Vowles statements. We used a proxy judicial sample who made decisions about the same criminal case vignette. The experimental manipulation meant that participants were exposed to the same information except for the clinical diagnosis: ‘complex mental health condition’, ‘Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder’ (EUPD) or ‘Schizophrenia’. Participants were asked to decide which sentence they were most likely to give and rate their agreement with the each of the Vowles statements. Analysis considered relationships between Vowles statements, differences between experimental conditions, and the extent to which different factors (including the Vowles statements) predicted the overall sentencing decision. Results identified that s.45A was, by far, the most common sentencing decision, and that agreement on the different Vowles statements was variable. There was limited evidence of an impact of diagnosis on decision-making, except for some weak evidence that an EUPD diagnosis was associated with marginally higher rates of prison sentences. Most importantly, not all of the Vowles statements were predictive of the final sentence, with attitudes towards the need for punishment having the clearest relationship with the final sentencing decision.