erm Magistrates only send people to prison because they feel the circumstances of the case justify it and erm I think in the public mind erm the criticism is more often the reverse, that Magistrates are too soft, and I've heard Lord Hailsham say more than once that if we do pay a price for the lay magistrate system it is leniency because what happens, and the difference between the lay magistrate system and the stipendiary system or the Crown Court system is that Magistrates do sit in threes, and what that tends to do is lead to compromises in sentence because discussion between three people irons out extreme views and you do tend to end up with a very well considered compromise view, which probably does tend to be more lenient than a sentence imposed by any one person who might himself take a very serious view of the circumstances.
