The plans include creating “swift courts” where cases under this threshold will be heard by a judge alone, to reduce the time taken for trials and help to reduce court backlogs.
Analysis by Sky News finds that sentencing outcomes for most convictions currently made by juries fell under the proposed threshold of three years in the latest year to June 2025.
Three in four (74%) of those convicted at a crown court received either a noncustodial sentence or jail time not exceeding three years, when excluding the “most serious” offences outlined by the justice secretary.
Exceptions will be made for the most serious offences, including “rape, murder, manslaughter, grievous bodily harm, robbery, and arson with intent to kill”, David Lammy has said.
The crown courts are responsible for the prosecution of serious criminal offences and currently operate a trial by jury in almost all cases.
One in 10 of the 1.4 million criminal cases in England and Wales were received by the crown courts in the year to June. The remaining, less serious, offences were dealt with by magistrates’ courts, without a jury.
In the latest year, around 78,000 cases appeared at the crown courts for a trial, and 56,000 of those cases resulted in conviction – just under three quarters of cases.
Public order offences were least likely to receive a custodial sentence of more than three years, occurring in just 3% of convictions in the latest year. Those convicted of robbery offences were most likely to receive longer sentences, with 41% receiving a custodial sentence of more than three years.
There were 291 different offences where none of the 10,763 people convicted received a custodial sentence longer than three years, representing one in five crown court convictions over the period.
Full details of how the changes will be implemented, and how it will be decided which cases are likely to fall under the three-year threshold, are yet to be determined.
Search the table below to see which offences carry the highest likelihood of receiving a sentence below the three-year threshold:
Why are justice reforms needed?
Mr Lammy said that the “bold” reforms are necessary to tackle the crisis in courtrooms, with the current backlog in crown courts reaching nearly 80,000 in June.
Victims face long waits for justice, with some trials currently facing waits of three to four years.
One in 10 adult rape cases collapsed due to the victim withdrawing in the latest year, which can be exacerbated by long waits for trial.
The Data x Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
