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UK Swindon: Only two in 44 charged end up with prison term Scott D'Arcy Swindon Advertiser Tuesday 21 Jun 2011 Officers have been raiding cannabis factories across Swindon and asking for residents to reveal if they are suspicious of any illicit activity. But, according to figures obtained by the Advertiser after a Freedom of Information request, some might feel the efforts of the police are being thwarted in the courts as most offenders are being allowed to walk free with conditional discharges, fines or community orders. The statistics, released by Wiltshire Police, revealed that a total of 11 people were charged by police with cultivating cannabis in 2009/10 in Swindon, while there were 17 in Wiltshire. This then increased in 2010/11 with 12 charged in the town and 27 across Wiltshire. But when the offenders reached court only one person in 2010/11 was given a prison sentence, while four received a conditional discharge – meaning they are effectively not punished if they do not re-offend in a given time period. A further nine offenders were given a community order, serving their sentence by carrying out unpaid work, and three people were fined. In 2009/10 one person was jailed, seven were given a conditional discharge, two received a community order and five were fined. Old Town resident Frank Avenell, who filed the information request after a number of raids near his home, said he felt sentences was not strong enough. He said: "When are the judiciary going to support the police by imposing draconian sentences which this criminality merits? The sentencing detailed in this report is a sick joke. "Young people's lives are being ruined and the general public put at risk by their activities." Wiltshire Police and the Crown Prosecution Service declined to comment on the figures. A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice said: "Sentencing in individual cases is rightly a matter for the courts to decide. "Only they have access to all the circumstances which must be taken into account when deciding on the appropriate penalty for a crime." Guidelines IN deciding how to punish people who are caught growing cannabis, the courts have clear sentencing guidelines. Since re-classification of the drug from a class C to a class B drug in 2009 the punishment for possessing, growing and selling cannabis has become stronger. The maximum penalty for supply, dealing, production and trafficking is 14 years in jail, while for possession the maximum term is four years. The Sentencing Council of England and Wales has specific guidelines for magistrates which depend on the seriousness of the offence and the range for small scale cultivation for personal use and non-commercial supply is between a medium-level community order and 12 weeks' custody. Anything deemed to be a larger scale operation – termed 'commercial cultivation' – would pass to the crown court automatically as magistrates' sentencing powers are not enough. A spokesman for the Sentencing Council said there were no set guidelines for cases in the crown court, as the draft proposal was currently out for consultation, but there were several decisions of the Court of Appeal referring to the production of cannabis. While these deal with large-scale operations, in each case the decisions refer to custodial sentences. http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/9095192.Cannabis_farmers_avoid_going_to_jail/
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