About 90% of all crimes are dealt with by magistrates’ courts. Sentences vary a lot but most people who are found guilty have to pay a fine. Magistrates’ courts can impose fines of up to 2,000 pounds or prison sentences of up to six months. If the punishment is to be more severe the case must go to a Crown Court. The most severe punishment is life imprisonment: there has been no death penalty in Britain since 1965.
The level of recorded crime and the number of people sent to prison both increased during the 1970s and 1980s. By the end of that period the average prison population was more than 50,000 and new prisons had to be built as overcrowding had become a serious problem. By 1988 the cost of keeping someone in prison was over 250 pound per week, which was more than the national average wage.
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